


synthesis

by zxanthe



Category: Soul Eater
Genre: Alternate Universe - Science Fiction, Angst, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Illustrated, Science Fiction, basically nerds in space
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-03
Updated: 2015-01-03
Packaged: 2018-03-05 01:30:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 10
Words: 57,189
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3099986
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zxanthe/pseuds/zxanthe
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>suddenly, you’re unmoored, your ties cut, a balloon freed from the hand of a child. all that’s left of home is you and a few meager trinkets, so what else can you do but continue on? (a science fiction au featuring a boy made of lightning, a flying assassin, a dream of immortality, and several ways to heal a broken heart.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. exposition

**Author's Note:**

> at last! presenting my entry for 2014's Resonance Bang! if i had to describe my experience in a single word, i'd have to say transformative. i feel like i've grown a lot as a writer and as a person (self-confidence +1000 because I DID THE THING AND LIVED!). in addition, i've met many amazing people in the fandom and had a lot of fun. shoutouts and endless thank-yous to therewithasmile, monkkeyslut, fabulousanima, and marshofsleep for being amazing betas, and an extra-special thank you to marsh for the time she took to bounce ideas around and create the fabulous fanmixes and art. i also want to give the lovely burdge thanks for taking the time to draw for this thing. hugs to all of you wonderful people! :D happy reading!
> 
> [ burdge's art ](http://burdge.tumblr.com/post/107022353474/for-resbang-2014-i-got-to-illustrate-zxanthes)  
> marsh's art:[ one ](http://marshofsleep.tumblr.com/post/106961024314/its-in-our-hands-fanmix-series-for-zxanthes) and [ two ](http://marshofsleep.tumblr.com/post/106962486529/just-one-last-sketchy-resbang-thing-i-worked-on)

_(khione)_

 Retrospectively, perhaps it would have been better - for Earth, at least - if they had waited just a few more centuries.

The Cellanists were unified in their desire for peace, but disagreed on how to do it. Some argued that the insurgent colonies should put down their arms and once again consent to domination by Earth. Others argued that Earth should bend and allow the colonies the independence they so craved. The issue came to a head once the tides turned in the revolutionaries’ favor. It became a matter of when, not if, the rebel forces would come to destroy Earth for good. Fed up with the pointless politicking, believing it was only a matter of time before the rebel colonies crushed Earth like a bug beneath their collective heel, a certain portion of the Cellanist party fled.

The radicals hopped on a starship to safer locales: specifically, a recently-discovered planet called Khione, a comfortable one hundred light-years from Earth and fifty from the nearest colony world, Meili. The planet was young: only nine hundred fifty million years old. Cold, harsh, desolate, unmarred by the presence of life - there, they reasoned, they would be safe, and could live their lives without the threat of annihilation hanging over their heads.

How very wrong they were.

At first, all was well. The radicals’ disappearance was hardly noticed. The Cellanists back on Earth continued to argue amongst themselves and with the hundreds of other factions vying for total control. And Khione remained safely at the back of everyone’s mind. But as the pioneers, slumbering peacefully in stasis, hurtled towards Khione at almost the speed of light, something went imperceptibly, horribly wrong.

 _A wormhole_ , explained the chief scientist once the ship had touched down on the planet’s surface. _It appears it transported us about ten thousand years into the past._ For a short time, panic reigned supreme, because if Earth hadn’t invented the technology to help them in that particular point in time, surely everyone was going to die, marooned on a miserable world that never seemed to stop being cold, dammit!

It took several shots from a pistol and even more shouting to restore order. The scientists assured everyone that things weren’t as bad as they seemed. They brought Terran plants and Terran animals, as well as embryos, seeds, and spores that had been frozen and were now ready for use. They would not starve. It was all going to be just fine.

But as it turns out, the scouting probes sent to Khione were a century old and thus not as precise in detecting life of the microscopic sort buried deep beneath layers of snow and ice. Almost as soon as the colonists dug past the permafrost and into the hard, cold earth, the microbes sprang into action, leaping at the chance to inhabit that warm, safe paradise that was flesh and blood. They were unlike any other organism the scientists had ever seen. The creatures were ruthless, ravenous - disrupting the electric communication between cells with their own strange, wild signals, sometimes stopping a heart, killing a limb, making veins burst and organs halt and causing the brain to stutter, malfunction and eventually perish. The colonists’ bodies were turning on them, traitorously dissolving into lifeless fleshy messes consumed by chaos, rendered unable to function. Fear took root and sprouted, its foul tendrils choking the small, helpless colonists to death. People barricaded themselves in their homes, afraid to venture out. Some fled into the featureless wilderness as if that would save them. It seemed like the end, everyone doomed to die as anachronisms - ten thousand years out of their proper place.

But in the deepest, most fundamental parts of a certain few, where their genes spiraled on and on for miles, where electricity flashed through their nervous systems, where the heart beat and the brain thought and each and every cell sparked and crackled with life, the microbes found a home. Rather than receiving rejection, they were embraced.

Out of the original five hundred thousand people, only ninety thousand remained. And as the ten thousand lost years passed, as the colonists finally arrived at the time their ancestors originated from, the microbes dwelling within the survivors altered them _radically_.

It started small. An adjustment in eye color. A paling of the hair. Perhaps a slight sharpening of teeth. Nothing serious. Nothing noticeable. But something in the fundamental human genetic code had shifted, morphed, caused by the slow integration of the microorganisms’ own DNA into their hosts’ bodies. The microbes were swallowed, consumed, digested, dissolved, and with that came a gift: electricity.

Six small disc-like organs, three on each side of the neck, manifested visibly as round, sunken dark patches about the size of the finger pads. Miniature versions of those in the neck peppered the palms. With nothing more than a deep breath, lightning could fork from their hands. With only a slight frown of concentration, they could sense the electricity - quiet and intricate and omnipresent - that each and every single living organism produced, as a tingle, a hum, a shiver in their necks. The people of Khione were strange and wonderful and they gloried in their abilities, and when the ten thousand years were up and their hair was bleached white and their teeth were sharp like sharks’, it was decided that contact with Earth would be made at last.

The Terrans were surprised, to put it mildly. Questions were posed, answers were given. Yes, a wormhole. Yes, we traveled back in time. Yes, we’ve been here for ten thousand years and would like nothing more than to reconnect with you ( _peacefully_ ).

The Khionian representative saw a flash of fear, of revulsion, in the Terran leader’s face, hovering in the hologram. It was there if only for a millisecond, less than the time it took for a nervous impulse to travel from brain to finger, but it was there as the Terran and his advisors took in his white hair and red eyes and sharp teeth. The representative felt a hard, cold knot of fear form in his stomach but he smiled as nonthreateningly as he could and explained patiently what the microbes had done to them all those years ago.

Whatever its implications, the representative reflected when he got home, it was definitely a historic meeting. He felt a brief moment of satisfaction that whatever else happened, his name would be forever remembered as that of the man who made the first tentative contact with the mother planet.

Of course, in the coming years, he would begin to wonder if that was such a good thing after all.

Some of the Terrans, it seemed, were not very comfortable with the idea that an advanced civilization had been existing for thousands of years alongside their own, unchecked and with the capacity to do enormous harm to Earth. After all, the fearful ones reasoned, wouldn’t it be better to neutralize the threat while the Khionians were still unsuspecting, still believing that all was going according to plan? This angered the people of Khione, and tensions grew and grew between the two worlds. In the end, it was decided that Khione would aid the insurgents in their struggle for freedom against Earth, the same struggle that the original colonists had fled so long ago.

* * *

  _(you)_

Your mother was from the great city-state of Oika, located on the planet of Khione. She grew up in a middle-of-the-middle-class home in a quiet apartment complex on the southern edge of the sprawling metropolis. Tall and slender and tan, with long white hair and laughing eyes the color of ripe apples, she captured your father’s heart as soon as she smiled at him.

They bumped into each other on the sidewalk, in the middle of the Deep Cold, that seasonal menace when the planet hardens into ice, hardly able to see for the snow and wind buffeting everything about. It was her fault, really. She’d slammed into your father, thinking him perhaps a lamp-post to anchor herself to, but when he fell, goods flying everywhere, she realized her mistake and offered to buy him a hot drink to make it up to him. As soon as she unwound the layers of clothing that had been covering her features in that café, your father felt like a fist had slammed into his gut, driving all air from him. Instantly he loved everything about your mother’s face, from her sleepy eyes to her wide grin to the barely-there smattering of freckles across her nose and cheeks. After a whirlwind courtship they were married within the year.

Your brother was born in the brief, cool summer, and once his teeth came in he was something of an oddity in the small village where your father lived all his life. Blue eyes were exceedingly rare among the inhabitants of Khione - couple that with flat teeth like those of the Terrans, and you had a very distinctive creature. His strange appearance never bothered him, though, and his first year and a half of life was spent living happily with his parents, exploring the nearby forest, and visiting his paternal grandmother, who lived close by.

When Wes was almost two, your mother became pregnant again. But you came a little early, entirely unexpected, the day a raging snowstorm blew in and almost buried the small house in several meters of snow. Your father was powerless to save her as she bled to death in his arms. You, however, were a perfectly healthy baby boy, squalling loudly, completely oblivious to the fact that you didn’t have a mother any longer. You were called Soul, as she wanted. It was the first and last time your father would give you anything as a parent.


	2. soul i

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> soul's fanmix [ here ](http://8tracks.com/sleepmarshes/put-my-strength-into-the-things-left-standing)

_(mechanics of the heart)_

“Why does Daddy have to be so mean?” you ask your brother, who is six and much wiser in the ways of the world. He doesn’t answer right away, as he’s too busy trying to free himself from the snow, which has swallowed him up to mid-chest.

“Help,” he says, holding his arms up, and you grab his hands and pull as hard as you can to no avail.

“Oww,” Wes whines, rubbing his wrists. “Go get Granny, Soul, she’ll be able to get me out.”

“No,” you say, and grab his arms again. “I’ll rescue you.”

Eventually you do manage to pull him out, and the two of you continue your trek across the drifts, Wes rubbing his sore arms and current sizzling with annoyance. When he doesn’t answer your earlier query, you repeat it, and your brother shrugs. “Daddy’s just like that,” he says. “I don’t know why either.”

You’re still pondering the question when you arrive at Granny’s. The snow is piled up to the windows, which is unusual, as she always keeps the area around her house smooth and snow-free. When you knock on the door, there is no answer, and the two of you begin to fidget as you wait, fog billowing from between your lips in the cold air. “Is Granny okay?” you ask.

Wes nods, frowning. “Yeah, she’s probably sleeping.”

You begin hammering on the door, hollering for your grandmother, and your brother joins you. Still, she doesn’t answer, and you can’t feel her current either, no matter how much you strain. You and Wes exchange glances, and then the two of you sprint to each side of the house, hammering on windows, still shouting. You begin to feel tears pricking at your eyes. Where’s Granny? Why isn’t she answering? Was it something you said?

“Soul!” calls Wes from the other side of the house, and you run towards the sound of his voice, tripping over your snowshoes and falling face-first to the ground just as your brother’s dark-cloaked shape comes into view.

“What’s going on?” you hear Granny’s voice say as you get up, spitting snow. You run towards it, still half-blinded by cold white flakes, and crash into your grandmother, hugging her tightly, hot tears melting the snow that had caked on your face.

“You wouldn’t answer the door so we got worried,” your brother says as Granny lifts you into her arms.

“Worried?” She snorts. “This old woman still has a lot of juice in her, you two. I won’t be leaving for a long time yet.”

You bury your face in her neck, feel the reassuring thrum of her living current. When your grandmother sets you down, the entire left side of her t-shirt is wet with the snow from your cloak. “Take off your things and come to the garage,” she says, putting her hands on her bony hips. “I could use your help.”

You and Wes grin at each other as you begin undressing, first taking off your scarves and cloaks, then your snowshoes, and finally your thermal bodysuits, exposing the loose shirts and shorts beneath. Barefoot, the two of you race each other towards the back of the house and then through the door leading to the garage. Granny, who had exchanged her wet t-shirt for a drier one, is already there, kneeling on the floor by the Shovel, the upper half of her body swallowed by the miniature snow plow. The machine is inert, its plow lowered to the ground. “Hand me the screwdriver, one of you,” your grandmother commands, snapping her fingers, and it’s Wes who wins the brief scuffle, shocking you in the chest and smugly handing her the tool. You glare and are about to go over and zap him back when Granny snaps her fingers once more, lightning sparking from the tips. “Start fighting and I’ll shock you both into oblivion,” she says, and returns to her work. You and your brother are sufficiently cowed.

“Whatcha doing, Granny?” Wes asks, settling into a sitting position. You try to peer over her shoulder, jumping a little because she’s so tall even while kneeling, glimpsing the Shovel’s convoluted metal innards: a tangle of wires and pipes and who knows what else. Instantly, you’re fascinated. You never knew the inside of a machine looked like _this_.

“This useless thing broke again,” Granny grumbles, inadvertently smearing grease on her forehead as she brushes back a stray lock of white hair. “And I’m not going all the way to the city to get it fixed, too expensive, so I’ve got to do it myself.”

“How?” you ask, still leaping to look at the shovel’s insides.

Granny fixes you with her burgundy gaze. “If you quit your hopping, I’ll tell you.”

And she does, explaining the function of each part as you ask, although she acknowledges the many she doesn’t recognize, which surprises you because Granny is old and knows everything. Wes falls asleep where he sits, slumping against the shovel’s side, but you’re wide awake, handing her tools, even working a little yourself when Granny permits it, twisting screws and such.

“This should do it,” Granny says, and a brilliant flash manifests briefly between Granny’s hand and the inert power cell. With a sort of shuddering cough, the machine whirs to life, humming loudly and lifting off the ground. You stand back and look up at Granny, who’s grinning as she closes the hatch. You smile too, feeling satisfied. “Shower mod, young man,” says Granny, jerking her thumb inside the house. Your elation quickly turns to horror and you groan, shaking your head. “You’re filthy. And it doesn’t take even a minute. Now shoo.”

You traipse into the house, scowling because the shower mod is the most awful way to get clean ever invented, blasting you in the face with scalding water and rubbing your skin raw with the soap. “I’ll have apples and peanut butter ready after!” Granny calls, a still-sleeping Wes in her arms, and you feel a thrill of excitement, suddenly much more eager to get your shower over with than you were before.

* * *

 

_(the previously unknown powers of trees)_

You’re sprawled in the snow underneath a pine tree, its sharp cool scent in your nose and its current humming softly in your neck. It’s late afternoon, almost dark, but you don’t move, and neither does your brother. In the cold stillness of the forest, it’s hard to keep your mind off things. Your brother’s current is soft with sleep. The words bubble up in your throat.

“Am I a murderer?”

At the sound of your voice, your brother stirs with a grunt, yawning hugely. You take a breath, hold it, push it out, exhale sharply again. Your brother watches you with questioning blue eyes, still heavy, still half-asleep. You stare back and the moment stretches, fragile and tenuous as a gossamer thread, and then you look away and it breaks and that’s the end of that. “Never mind,” you murmur (you already know the answer anyway), and you resume your previous position stretched out on the ground on your back, staring at the slivers of gray sky visible through the snow-laden branches.

“Soul?” murmurs Wes some time later, looming over you on hands and knees. “Why are you crying?”

“I’m _not_ ,” you say, even as you wipe your eyes and feel the wetness there. You sit up so fast you narrowly avoid hitting your brother’s forehead with your own and bury your face in your knees. “I’m not,” you repeat through shaking shoulders and hitched breaths.

Wes gently touches your arm. Your whole body shivers.

“I’m a murderer,” you whisper, and in the darkness beneath your eyelids it sounds like a confession.

Your brother rubs your shoulder. “No, you’re not.”

“I _am_ ,” you groan. “Dad said…he told me…I k-k-k- _killed_ Mom.”

“Dad’s an asshole and you know that,” Wes says. “It’s not your fault that Mom’s gone. You can’t help being born any more than a tree can help growing or a bird can help singing. And besides, then I wouldn’t have my little brother to push around.”

You shiver. How could you have stopped yourself being made, being conceived, being born? It’s natural, inevitable when you do the sort of thing that leads to a baby, and if anything, it’s _Dad’s_ fault that she died. A small core of anger hardens in your heart.

“Did you mean that?” you murmur, and Wes cuffs you gently on the head.

“’Course, metalhead.”

Your eyes slide almost shut. His current, spiky with anger at your father and quiet with sympathy for you, confirms the truth of his words. You take a deep breath. The cold air clears your head.

“Let’s stay at Granny’s tonight, yeah?” Wes says, and you nod, a quick bob of your head.

“He was really angry,” you say softly, thinking of the words on the scribe, the raw yell in your father’s throat. The sun has almost vanished beneath the horizon, leaving a few watery rays to light the spaces between the trunks. The pulse of each tree’s inner lightning is slow and dark and wet, sleeping beneath their soft coverings of snow. You sigh, and Wes’s fingers hover above the trunk he was leaning on because he’s listening too, and as the sun slips beneath the horizon and darkness settles itself among the branches, calm returns to your heart and you feel a measure of peace.

* * *

 

_(mama)_

Kella. Keh-la. Kell-ah. Variant of _Kelly_. It was your mother’s name. The only thing you know about her, really. Kella Rhea Evans nee Velchar. Wes has a few scattered memories of her, mostly of when she was pregnant with you. He says your father was different then: he smiled a lot. You’re not sure you believe him, but Wes wouldn’t lie about something like that.

In the dark closet, you stare at the holopic for a long time. It’s like a womb, the soft clothes enveloping you, caressing you. It makes you feel closer to her, even though you can’t remember what it feels like to be unborn, curled latent and waiting within her body.

You found the small cube while playing hide and seek, flicked it on without thinking, envisioning perhaps an image from Granny’s youth or even your grandfather’s, who died long before you were born. But instead what came up was a picture of _her_ , slender and young, laughing so hard that she might break apart from the force of it, shoulders shaking in an endless loop of mirth. You’ve never seen a picture of your mother because your father got rid of them all when she died, but it could be no one else, because your smile is hers, your eyes are hers, even your hands and the barely-there freckles spattered across your nose and cheeks are hers, hers, hers. You click through the holo, picture after picture of your mother sending jolts through your heart. “Mama,” you whisper, and the word tastes strange on your tongue because you have never had cause to utter it before.

When Wes finds you, you’re transfixed by an image of Kella Evans twirling on the beach in the brief warm period between winter and the Deep Cold. Long, tan arms, slender legs, the sundress billowing around her knees. Your father enters the frame and grabs her hands and twirls with her, and you stare wide-eyed at his grin, so big it makes his whole face wrinkle. Wes takes one look and shock renders him speechless, his current a blank buzz. He crouches down beside you and you take him through the pics, one by one, your eyes hungrily flickering over your mother, absorbing every one of her smiles.

* * *

 

_(fatherly affection)_

Your father is home for the week, so he demands your presence in the house he used to share with your mother. You don’t understand why this is, because even when he’s home the two of you stay at Granny’s. The only reason you agree to attend is because your grandmother will be there too.

The atmosphere over dinner is colder than the snows outside. Your father’s current is unnaturally calm, revealing nothing. You push your food around your plate, eager to leave.

“Well?” says Granny finally, setting down her fork. “You didn’t call us here just to see your beloved family after you’ve been gone a month. What’s going on?”

Your father sets his utensils down as well. “I’m going to war,” he says. Granny’s eyes widen. Across the table, you and Wes look at each other.

“War,” Granny repeats. “Like hell you are.”

Your father looks his mother in the eye. “The colonies are losing, and if you had been paying attention you would know this. They need-“

Granny’s current bursts into flame, crackling with anger. “Need! What about _us?_ Are you just going to hop on a starship and leave us all behind? The moment you climb up that entrance ramp you’ll be dead to us. _Dead_ , Veron!”

Your father’s face is a sculpted mask. “You’ll be well cared for on the soldier’s sal-“

“ _Bullshit!_ ” Granny shouts, thumping her fist on the table. It leaves a black mark on the wood. “They pay you nothing because they _have_ nothing! Think, Ver! What about us, what about your _sons?_ ”

His eye rests first on Wes, then on you, darting away almost as soon as it lands. Red peers into gray; your father does not meet your eyes. Your face twists. “ _Coward_ ,” you say quietly, putting as much venom in the word as you can muster, for at last you understand why your father cannot look you in the face, why he stayed away and brought the lash of words harsher than the Deep Cold on your back, and you use this as a weapon because he’ll hear her voice behind your own.

Everything stops. Your father’s current reflects nothing but shock. “What…did you say?”

“I said you’re a coward,” you repeat, and when you meet your father’s eyes he doesn’t look away.

You remember a day when you were eight years old and you were looking for a scribe on communication bots. Your search took you to your father’s room, and you’d been shuffling through the small, tube-shaped generators on the shelf, reading the labels. You accidentally opened one and the words there froze you, because they were your father’s, dated a week or so after you were born, and they blamed you, only you, for your mother’s death, and you believed them. And then your father walked in and saw what you were reading and ordered you _out!_ , his yell, his twisted current betraying more emotion than did any of his carefully-constructed sentences ever would and that’s how you knew he believed what he put there, and so it must be true.

His current twinges, a break in the rigid control, and you don’t back down because you know that he knows that you’re absolutely right.

Later, when your father has long since left, walking stiffly out the door, you, Wes, and Granny sit around the table finishing dinner. You rediscover your appetite without the weight of him pressing on your shoulders. Granny doesn’t share your attitude. She sighs. “I should have seen this coming.”

Wes shrugs. “Eh. Good riddance, I say.”

You have to agree.

* * *

 

_(woo-woo)_

“Hey, little brother, I’ve been thinking.”

“That’s a shocker. Gimme the wrench.”

“Shut up. Anyway, I’ve been working in town for a while now. And you hear a lot of things in the store, y’know? So, here’s the thing: you know how you’re a mechanic and all that? Robo-boy, metalhead, screw-“

“Fuck you. Now take this and gimme the drill.”

“Wash your mouth, kid, or I’ll do it for you. So, it seems that this town doesn’t have someone to fix their bots and hovercars and appliances. They’ve got to go all the long way to the city to get that done.”

You snort.

“Well, I’m pretty sure that the good folk of our village would be very happy if a certain mechanic-“ he clears his throat- “would set up shop in that conveniently abandoned warehouse on Waal Avenue.”

“No.” You turn on the drill, and the noise drowns out Wes’s next words.

Your brother sighs once you’ve finished. “Soul-“

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Are you fucking joking? M’not a _mechanic_.”

“Are _you_ joking? You’re fixing the _car_ right now, little brother. If that’s not what a mechanic does, I’m a Bloody Brigadier.”

“I’m _fourteen_ ,” you grit out. “And I’m not a _mechanic_ , dammit. I just tinker.”

Your brother snorts. “ _Just tinker_ , my ass. You got Granny’s greenhouse mod working again, good as new-“

“No, I didn’t, it hums loud-“

“Granny’s vacuum bot-“

“Hammer out of place-“

“The terminal, when I spilled water-“

“Just needed new-“

“The car, then and now!”

“It was a little-“

“It was trashed and you know it! Come on, Soul, look at yourself! You’ve been doing this since you were four years old! You’re an effing prodigy and your talent is useful and I’m determined to make you see that, so shut up and quit your shit!”

The two of you glare at each other, Wes flat on his stomach to do so. You fight a strong desire to throw the bulky drill at your brother’s stupid face.

Wes is the first to break. “Look, Soul-“

“No, _you_ look. I said I don’t wanna, so I’m not gonna, got it? Now go away, I need to finish this job.”

//

This, by all means, is not the end of it. Wes heckles you relentlessly every chance he gets, so much so that you begin to avoid him as much as possible. It’s only one evening in the room you two share at Granny’s that you finally snap.

“NO!” you shout, and tackle him to the floor. “Shut up already!” You swipe at Wes, hand crackling, but your brother dodges and gets you in a headlock.

 “Not until…you say _yes_!” he hisses in your ear, and this time your hand hits its mark and Wes springs away with a yowl, clutching his burned arm. “Goddammit, Soul, I have a date tonight!”

“Well too fucking bad,” you growl. “Shoulda thought about that before opening your goddamn mouth.”

Wes scowls and then rushes you, one arm catching you as you try to dodge. You wrestle upright for a few moments before falling with a thud to the floor. “Say it,” Wes growls, and you lock your teeth together.

“No.”

He lands a shock. The current slams up your arm, makes you gasp. “Say yes,” says Wes, and you wriggle free and shock him back, muttering “No!” as you do. A brief scuffle follows, resulting in Wes flattening you to the ground embarrassingly quickly, one hand on your neck. “Say it,” he whispers, and you hate the glint of triumph in his eyes. You press your lips together and shake your head as much as his hand allows. Wes sighs. “I hoped it wouldn’t come to this,” he says, mock-mournfully. A tiny current shivers from his hand to your neck, and you shudder, unable to help yourself; the feeling is so unpleasant. Wes increases the flow, ever so slightly, until your neck spikes in pain and your eyes water and your mouth opens and closes like a fish’s.

“ _FINE, GODDAMMIT!_ ” you shout when you can’t take much more, and the current abruptly ceases. You sit up, rubbing your neck, which still tingles unpleasantly, muttering the foulest profanity you can think of. “Tut tut, little brother,” says Wes smugly. “I just might have to shock those nasty words out of you.”

“Ah, shut up, _Wuss_.”

“Metalhead.”

“Asshat.”

“Screwbrain.”

“Woo-Woo,” you say, smirking, and Wes’s face reddens as you cackle. “Never forget,” you choke out.

“We broke up a long time ago,” your brother grumbles, but that only adds to your mirth.

* * *

 

_(snow)_

It’s the Deep Cold, so you only have the shop open once a week because getting into town is a chore, not to mention slightly dangerous. Granny sits in a chair in front of the fire, grumbling about her aching bones and how much trouble it is to get a decent meal around here, even though Wes is a first-rate cook. You spend most of your time making little insect bots that you control with your current, sometimes using them to annoy your brother when there’s nothing better to do.

“Deploy the Shovel, Soul!” your brother shouts from downstairs. “The snow’s getting past the first floor!”

“The Shovel’s a wimp; we need the big plow!”

“Then get it out there!”

“You do it; you’re closer!”

“I’m busy!”

You snort. “Tell your latest fling I think her boyfriend’s a fucking idiot!”

“Ha, ha, metalhead. Get the damn plow out there or you’ll be going shoveling instead.”

“You two quit your yelling or I’ll throw you both out!” Granny shouts from the living room.

“Says you!” you grumble, but only to yourself; her wrath is a formidable force.

//

 It’s been a week and a half since the snowstorm started and you’re bored as hell trapped inside the house with your family. In a desperate attempt to pass the time your brother unearthed the ancient GamerGhoul from the back of his closet and the two of you have set to playing it, rediscovering the wonders of _Super Galaxoid XIV_.

“Damn!” Wes exclaims as his avatar perishes with a muffled scream. “Almost beat it, too.”

“Heh,” you say with a smirk as your own character makes it to the next level. “That’s too bad, big bro.”

“Shut up, metalhead.”

“Boys!”calls Granny from downstairs. You groan. When Granny takes that tone it means that you have to do _work._ “What d’you think she wants?” you say, flopping backwards onto Wes’s bed. Your brother shrugs. “Maybe the plow failed or the garage caved in. Who knows?”

“ _Boys!”_

“Coming!” your brother shouts back. The two of you leave your room and pad down the stairs and into the living room, where Granny stands ramrod straight, facing the terminal. “What-“ your brother begins, but your grandmother only snaps her fingers for silence, little bolts of lightning forking from the tips. You and your brother exchange puzzled looks. The two of you stand on either side of Granny, leaning forward a little bit to better hear the hologram hovering above the terminal’s surface.

“… _unable to make contact with the Terran starfleet so it is assumed that their intent is harmful. Evacuation procedures are to…”_

You snort. “What-“

“ _Shh!_ ” your grandmother hisses sharply, putting her hand on your arm and effectively paralyzing you with her current, forcing you to listen to the rest of the feed.

“ _…know better I’d say they just_ appeared _, but that’s impossible.”_ The screen switches from the frowning scientist to the newscaster, who is having difficulty keeping the worried expression off his face. _“Thank you, Agathe. Ms. Dulwar is one of the foremost experts on star travel in the Colonies. She isn’t…”_

“No way,” your brother mumbles, but then Granny changes the channel to a live feed of space, showing rows of bright stars, approaching at a frightening speed.

Granny had released you some time ago, but you’re frozen, staring at the screen. Your brother’s voice echoes in your head, _noway noway noway,_ because it’s impossible that the enemy could be coming here, to little out-of-the-way Khione, right this very second and in such a large concentration. The fact of so many ships’ departure from Earth would not go unnoticed, and Khione and the other colonies would have received word as soon as the vessels took off, giving them plenty of time to prepare themselves. But, as you listen to more news reports, all claiming that the Terran fleet just _appeared_ out of nowhere, the reality of the situation sets in and you realize that you’re sparking, little bolts of lightning crackling from your hands to the carpet. Granny doesn’t seem to notice.

There are several beats of silence, and then your brother twitches. “We’ve got to get out of here,” says Wes numbly, and then the three of you scatter, throwing on thermal bodysuits and cloaks and snowshoes and trying very hard not to panic at the thought of the danger just a few short hours away. You meet back at the garage, panting and shivering. “Car,” your brother gasps, his sapphire eyes the only visible feature of his face. “Will it work in this weather?”

You can barely unclench your jaw enough to get the words out. “Did you remember to turn the heating on?”

Wes nods, a quick bob of his head. You respond in kind. Granny claps her hands. “Oika’s the nearest port city. Let’s go.” The three of you open the door to the garage. Immediately Wes hops into the driver’s seat while you sit shotgun and Granny buckles herself in the back. Never before have you flown so fast in a storm, shooting like a comet towards Oika and the haven the port promises. It’s only the navigational system that keeps your brother from veering off in the wrong direction, only the AI that keeps him from wrecking completely in the howling winds. You turn on the screen. The newscaster’s voice has begun to crack and his face is so obviously terrified that you turn it off, more jittery than ever.

It’s a bumpy ride, spots of turbulence making the car sway alarmingly. You can hardly see two feet in front of you because of the snow, white and thick, piling up in the corners of the windshield only to be melted away. Seconds are hours, minutes are days. Everyone’s current crackles, spikes, shivers with fear. Nobody talks, except when Granny groans as the car rocks in the wind.

Even by car, the city is far away. It took you hours to get to the port and time is ticking fast. All is chaos, as you knew it would be. Below is a seething mass of dark cloaks, illuminated here and there by a blast of lightning, the red blur of a laser bullet, all smudged by the furiously falling snow. Even over the howl of the wind and the purr of the engine you can hear the crowd, yelling and moaning, shouting and screaming in equal parts anger and terror and incredulity. You can feel them, roaring in your neck, the force of their combined currents so strong that you think you might vomit, even with the muffler wrapped around your neck. Through the white haze you can see the set of circular blue glows that is a starship taking off.

“Stay close to me!” Wes shouts as the three of you get out as quickly as you can. “Don’t let go of my hands, no matter what!” He grips yours with his right and Granny’s with his left. Granny opens her mouth to shout something, but just then

the earth _shudders_

and all goes dark. For a few seconds there is a stunned silence and then renewed screams rent the freezing air. All you can do is gape at the flat black sky because somehow the Terrans extinguished the sun and that is _not possible_ -

“ _Come on!”_ your brother roars, tugging on your hand and pulling you out of your shock. Breathlessly you stumble after as he bulls his way through the still-reeling crowd, clutching his hand like a lifeline. “ _Granny!”_ Wes shouts, and you glance across him to see your grandmother blasting a path towards the last starship, bright current thundering from her gloved palm. You lift your own arm and do the same. Never before was your lightning this strong; it leaves your ears ringing and you hair on end and the smell of ozone all around you. People scream and crumple as they are hit with your bolts but you don’t care, all you know is that you _have_ to get to that starship, your last hope of survival, because it’s so dark and the sun is gone and you are absolutely _terrified_

* * *

 

_(on fear)_

it makes us crazy

* * *

 

_(up up and away)_

That starship is the _last starship_ in the port city-state of Oika, the only thing between you and death, and everyone seems to have realized that. With a mighty surge, people begin running towards the it, those who fall doomed to die under the relentless cascade of feet before the real horror begins.

(perhaps they are the lucky ones)

You turn to your brother, wide-eyed, heart pounding. Red meets blue for a fraction of a second, and then a body slams into you from behind, heavy, almost knocking you down to the ground, ripping his hand from your own so quickly you almost miss it. For a few moments you stand clutching an empty glove and then your eyes widen, a terrible force clenching around your heart, around your stomach, squeezing every inch of your body until you cannot breathe, but somehow you find it in you to scream your brother’s name, somehow you make your feet move, struggling against the frantic flow of people in a vain attempt to get to him, shoulders slamming against shoulders against torsos against heads, hands pushing through bodies through gaps between bodies through the dark heavy air, legs straining, but the crowd is strong, too strong, and you are swept back, back, back, onto the entrance ramp, away from your brother. The cold metal seals closed just as you break free and reach it. You hammer the unyielding door with your fist, shrieking wordlessly now, until your throat is raw, until your hand is numb and blood flies from your lips, until the force of the launch flattens you to the cold metal and silences your voice for a long time.

* * *

 

_(khione)_

first a plane. then a curve. then a planet.

the atmosphere surrounds her, a soft blue shield, a glowing glove, a second skin. she whirls, gigantic, round, peaceful, gliding through space.

she’s beautiful. clouds shiver and stretch in the wind, white and layered. the ocean is smooth and blue and tranquil, knowing all, revealing nothing. the continents are an intricate landscape of whites and browns and greens, painted with the most delicate of brushes. her current is art: slow and deep, implacable, volatile, _screaming_

* * *

 

_(impressions)_

fingers, warm on cold glass

breath, hot, moist, blurring her image

she twirls on, oblivious, aware

retinas burn brilliant bright with the light of a star

the taste of blood

your brother’s face

* * *

 

_(deconstruction)_

stars are the source of all life. but if you get too close, you’ll get burned.

khione, incandescent, incalescent, cracking, breaking, burning: no longer is she a goddess of ice and snow. your home is a tiny black dot that turns white against the star, so inconsequential compared to its light, its tremendous, mind-boggling mass. you almost miss its destruction: perhaps a brief flare from the corona as it consumes the planet that it once nurtured.

you feel the exact moment its current stops. a part of you stops with it.

* * *

 

_(a question and its answer)_

what does it take to crash a planet into a star? ask a terran and they could probably tell you

* * *

 

_(how)_

how can the death of a planet be silent? such violence, such anger, such grief? you can feel the shock waves but the explosion is noiseless. you think of your brother and your grandmother and wonder if their deaths were just as quiet

* * *

 

_(extracts)_

you’re on your knees. the most horrible noises of anguish echo around you and all you can think is _they’re so noisy_

* * *

 

_(stasis)_

they don’t have enough room for all of you to be standing around awake, but that’s okay. there are plenty of pods.

your sleep is dreamless.

 


	3. soul ii

_(awakening)_

You slowly drift into that half-awareness common to the brief, hazy period between sleeping and waking, and you luxuriate in it, because in a few minutes or hours or days your brother will come and rudely pull you from its warm embrace with a shock to the neck-

 

You open your eyes. Far above, a gray ceiling stretches away into infinity. It’s quiet here, the air still and cool. You sense the man before you hear his footsteps, his current tense. His face looms into view a few moments later, brown skin, dark hair, bright eyes framed by thick square glasses. “Morning, sunshine,” he says, and offers one intricately tattooed arm. You only stare at it, and the man sighs, letting his hand drop. “Look, kid, I’ve got no time for your bullshit. Takeoff is in three hours and I need your info _now_.”

You stay silent. The man’s current crackles in annoyance. “I know your planet got blown up and you’ve gotta be super bummed about that, but c’mon. Time’s ticking. Tell me your name, at least, or so help me I’ll force it out of you.”

You sigh and sit up, because you’re really not in the mood to deal with this guy. “Soul Evans.”

“ _Thank_ you!” says the man, pulling out a datapod with a flourish. “Middle name?”

“None.”

“Biological age?”

“Seventeen.”

“Occupation?”

You only hesitate for a fraction of a second before answering. “Mechanic.”

The man’s face brightens. “Mechanic, eh? We could use you here.”

You give a noncommittal grunt. “Where are we?”

The man sighs and checks his screen. “Meili,” he says, and you blink. That’s fifty light-years away. “They said they’d take you guys off our hands. You can settle here if you want. Marry a girl, build a life, that sort of thing.”

You press your lips together and swing from the stasis pod, bones snapping and creaking as you stretch.

“Although I’d like it very much if you decided to stay right here,” he continues, sighing. “We’ve got a shortage of ‘chanics here and it’s a little much. I’m Kirikou, by the way,” the man says, holding out his hand. “Ask for me if you decide to stick around. Pay’s alright, fifty units an hour.”

You examine his offered hand, considering the implications before realizing there aren’t any, not anymore. Kirikou flinches when you grasp his fingers. “Jesus,” he says with a grimace. “Don’t _shock_ me.”

* * *

 

_(the secret lives of starships)_

Despite yourself, you begin to enjoy it. Kirikou is the chief mechanic on the _Baba Yaga_ and he shows you how to speak the language of the ship, the difference between a deep bass moan and a high metallic screech, what it means when this gauge reads high and that one spins around in dizzying circles, what the optimal fuel pressure is and the intricacies of the control room’s inner workings. Your prior experiences fixing cars and bots pale in comparison to this, and so Kirikou and his team have to spend the equivalent of a Khionian year out of stasis teaching you.

Starships, you find, are complicated, moody things, especially this cargo liner, which has been in service almost since the first starflight took place some millennia ago.

//

You can’t sleep, so more often than not you can be found wandering down corridors grown dusty with disuse, exploring the ship’s innermost chambers. On your walks you’ve found many things: the towering, smooth black spire that is the central computer, the convoluted mess of pipes spraying into the plumbing control room, and even a small, perfect jungle that, according to the manual, is there for oxygenation purposes. Sometimes you get lost and can’t find your way back, but that’s all right, because you can walk for a while. Most times, you leave your companion bot behind and curl up in a snug corner, listening to the clanks and whirs of the ship around you. It was only after Kirikou threatened to dump your miserable ass at the next stop that you relented and took it with you.

* * *

 

_(memory)_

Sometimes, you flick through the holocube. You watch your mother dance, laugh, smile on a place that no longer exists. Your father took a picture of the sunset on the beach, and you watch it slowly sink beneath the waves until the pic starts over and the sun blinks back to where it started.

Some more pics were added as the years went on: you and your brother arguing, Granny working in the greenhouse she so loved, Wes grinning and waving, you blinking owlishly at the camera, on and on and on. The pictures hover above the small cube, little windows into a departed life. At first, you couldn’t stand to look at them.

(more than anything, you miss them. your family is a deep, constant ache in your chest that you know will never, never go away)

* * *

 

_(cross-galaxy road trip)_

The _Baba Yaga_ takes you places. Trips still take at least fifty years, as the big cargo liner hasn’t gotten a quantum driver installed yet, being low on Gorgon Shipping Corp’s priority list. This doesn’t particularly bother you, and you’re content to slip into stasis over and over again. Kirikou assures you that stilling your body this many times won’t cause any adverse effects on your health, despite the fact that you didn’t ask nor care.

In the meantime, you get a taste of the wider universe. Eurybia is a world of nothing but water, its cities floating both above and beneath the waves. It was impossibly humid, and even with the special suit you wore to go diving you still sweated like a pig, a fact which Kirikou never let you forget. You got your revenge later that night, when you and the other two mechanics went to a bar in the city’s underside and got insanely drunk on a volatile concoction of alcohol and the blood of a native Euryboid life-form, to the point that Kirikou stripped naked and performed a wobbly dance atop the table, shouting loudly all the while. Kim alleges that the memory, warped and blurred though it is, still gives her nightmares, a fact with which her boyfriend and fellow engineer (you can never remember his name) agrees firmly. None of you waste an opportunity to tease Kirikou about the incident, much to his chagrin.

Famous for its fierce weather and even fiercer politics, Boreas, the Bloody Planet, is an entirely different story. It was the instigator of the First Uprising, revolting against Terran control and inspiring fifteen of Earth’s twenty-seven colony worlds to join the cause. Earth’s creation of the quantum driver quickly put an end to that, but rage still simmers hot and deep among the conquered colonies, especially in the wake of Khione’s brutal, untimely end.

The _Baba Yaga_ hovers in geosynchronous orbit above the Borean capital for a few days due to the presence of a massive storm system currently wreaking havoc in the city. You watch the newsfeed and are unsure if the enormous tornadoes rumbling across the ground are real or a clever fabrication designed to reel in viewers. The others, however, seem to believe the feed wholeheartedly and gasp and chatter among themselves about the awe-inspiring powers of extreme weather. It’s only when you find a small window and see the thick, grumbling clouds swirling menacingly in the atmosphere that you believe it, and then wonder how people live there. All that wind must get annoying.

Because the port is completely wrecked for the time being and the _Baba Yaga_ is on a tight schedule, the cargo is distributed a little differently. Smaller pods, each piloted by two crew members, streak from the ship and down to the city to deliver their respective goods. Most of the city is underground, because the cost of rebuilding it entirely each time a storm blew through would be astronomically high. As you fly over the landscape, you can’t help but be impressed by the skill of the Borean engineers. Despite the ferocity of the storm, the few aboveground buildings sustained little to no damage.

The people of Baldr live in a floating, man-made city shaped like a disk, as the atmosphere is too toxic at the moment to support life. Its low metal spaces appeal to you, and more often than not you drift away from the others and explore the colony, masking your bright hair beneath a hat. It’s there that you get your first tattoo, a pine tree in white ink. Its trunk is your spine, branches fanning out across the skin of your back, needles shivering softly in an invisible breeze.

* * *

 

_(vivienne)_

The air tastes ancient.

You’re tempted to hold your breath, but you don’t. It’s the loudest sound in the room, the air sighing as it brushes past your throat, your tongue, your teeth. The atmosphere tastes recycled, used, filtered, over and over again for…what was it this time? You ask your companion. “One hundred and two point three six years have passed since you have entered stasis,” it informs you.

You sigh, soft and slow, and sit up, the bed creaking as you do. Your battered knapsack slumps, sad and mostly empty, beside you. It contains everything you own. You reach inside it, fingers brushing against a few old bots, some tools, a useless driver’s license, folded winter clothes, a muffler, and the edges of a holocube. At last, you find what you’re looking for, and you pull it out, gently.

You hold up your brother’s glove. It’s perfectly preserved, the soft fabric as supple and strong as it was when he put it on that day all those years ago. You slip it over your hand, flexing your fingers. It fits perfectly.

“How old am I?” you ask your companion, in the language of your homeworld.

“Chronologically or biologically?”

“Both.”

“Chronologically you have been alive for three hundred and thirty-one years. Biologically you have been functioning for a span of time approximately equal to twenty Khionian years. You will turn twenty in twelve and a half Mawoid weeks.”

You stare up at the ceiling, close and flat above you in the bed nook. You press your gloved hand to your lips, against your nose. It smells cool, like the preservation cabinet, but perhaps, just beneath that, you can detect a hint of charred fabric.

(you’re the older brother now, by about one year and three centuries)

You don’t move for a long time, and it’s only when your companion tells you that you have fifteen minutes to pack your bags and get out that you do.

 //

Mawu is a lush jungle world of middling age. It’s also the hub of engineering in the colonies, the place where new technology is invented every day. It’s dominated by hulking factories and glittering laboratories and occasional slender towers that are all tall but have nothing on the hulking metal behemoths covering the surface of Eibon-7 all the way out in the Xi Scorpii system. Now that the route has taken it close to Mawu, Gorgon Shipping Corp decided to send the old cargo liner to get fitted with a quantum driver. The whole process will take six months. Kirikou and the others are in fits of excitement.

The quantum driver was one of the most revolutionary inventions in the history of science, enabling the user to spontaneously generate a wormhole that could take them wherever they wished in a matter of moments. It was the determining factor in the first war between Earth and its colonies. It was the device responsible for the destruction of your home, plucking it from its safe orbit and flinging it into its star, the wormhole performing the action flawlessly. You’re unsure whether or not you want to smash it to bits or take it apart and find out how the hell it works.

 //

This world, you decide, is a fascinating place. Here, magnetic fields lift entire chunks of land in the air, and if you strap on an exoskeleton, they’ll lift you too. It’s the most exhilarating thing you’ve ever done, the wind in your hair and the ground shrinking beneath you and the delicious feeling of having the thoughts swept from your mind as you concentrate on keeping yourself upright. You spend most of your time in the sky, jetting among small islands lush with vegetation, sometimes going so high you leave the field and hang for the handful of seconds the exoskeleton’s propulsion system can hold you in the naked air before plummeting back to earth, yell torn away by the wind.

“Shit, Soul,” Kirikou tells you later. “You’re going to run us bankrupt! Exoskeleton rentals aren’t fucking cheap, you know!”

But you don’t like the ground or the buildings, because there are too many bodies and they give you strange looks because of your white hair and red eyes and sharp teeth. Pureblooded Khionians are rare nowadays and so, despite the heat, you cover your head in a dark beanie. Your ponytail, stubby though it is, sticks out the back, but that’s okay, because it’s not as noticeable as when you let your hair loose.

You make your home on the three hundred and twenty-sixth floor of an apartment complex with the rest of the crew. Sometimes Kirikou and the others hammer at your door as the sun slips beneath the horizon, calling for you to come join them in their nightly revels, but you always stay quiet. Eurybia was the only time you went with them, and only then because the _Baba Yaga_ was scheduled to leave a few days later. You like the fact that your room is high, because then the unbearable crackling of the city’s collective current fades to a more manageable background hum and you don’t have to deal with much more than the currents of your neighbors.

//

“ _Soul Evans, open up this door or I’m kicking it in!”_

In one week, you’ll be departing Mawu. You’ll miss your flights with the exoskeleton.

_“I’m gonna count to three!”_

You turn towards the entrance. You can sense the currents of your fellow mechanics, buzzing with excitement, and you know that Kirikou means to carry out his threat. You sigh.

_“One! Two! Th-”_

You pull open the door and let your annoyance manifest itself as a scowl. “ _N-_ ,” you begin, but Kirikou doesn’t give you a chance to finish, grabbing your wrist and pulling you out the door. “You’re coming with us,” he says. You roll your eyes. “Look, I don’t wanna do this-“

“Ah ah ah!” chirps Kim, grinning wickedly, and she grabs your hands and slips a pair of gloves over them, transparent things that adhere to your hands and glow brightly when you try to shock them off, absorbing the lightning as soon as it comes out of your palms.

“Real old tech,” smirks Kim. “Got ‘em cheap. Now be a good boy and go out with us. You’re such a _hermit_.”

You resist the urge to lean forward and close your jaws around the finger she waves in your face. Instead you settle for a glare. “I fuckin’ hate you all.”

“We know,” says Kim’s boyfriend, bald except for two long prongs of hair just above his ears, gelled into spikes that look solid enough to kill.

“We are going to have a lot of fun tonight,” says Kirikou with a feral grin. “The ground is where it’s at.”

You roll your eyes, resigned to your fate.

//

Bar-hopping, you decide, is torture, because every venue is filled with loud annoying people who don’t know how to keep their emotions to themselves, and to top it all off you’re not wearing your neck muffler. By the second hour, you have a headache, and the patrons’ currents, warped with drink, burrow painfully into your neck. While Kirikou and the other two get progressively drunker, you only take occasional sips of your cocktail, wishing that the woman in the next seat over would get a grip and quit whining before you lose it and punch her stupid face.

You manage to peel off your gloves at two forty-three in the morning and consider zapping everyone in a twelve foot radius just to make them shut the fuck up. Mercifully, your fellow mechanics decide that it’s time to leave, and they whisk you out the door and into the night, where the people are muffled by trees and shrubs and the occasional native creature. Your relief quickly turns to horror, however, when they begin to wobble their way towards a _club_. Even from here you can hear the bass, making the ground shudder and the air waver, and you dig your heels in because you can _feel_ the currents of the people inside, jagged and loose, reverberating from their sources to clash against each other, discordant, frenzied. They make you feel vaguely ill.

“ _No,_ ” you say, but Kirikou only laughs and before you can resist Kim pulls you in for a kiss, her tongue sliding into your mouth and leaving blood on your sharp teeth. “ _Feisty_ ,” she giggles, licking her lips. “Tryyyyy it, Ox!”

You bare your teeth and hiss, electricity crackling brightly on your palms, too antagonized for words.

“Ya look like a _kitty_ , Shoul,” Kirikou slurs, laughing a little. He rips off your hat. “Look,” he says. You know what your hair’s doing, know that it’s standing on end. You’re grateful that it’s in a ponytail; otherwise the effect would be so much worse.

 “He’s even arching his back,” Kim’s boyfriend laughs, and lightning cracks whiplike from your palm to strike the flesh of his arm. He jumps back with a yelp, rubbing the burn. “The _fuck?!_ ” he says, looking angry. “Thought ya put _gloves_ on ‘im, Kimmy!”

“Did,” says Kim, but then Kirikou materializes out of nowhere with a handful of syringes, grinning widely.

“Give ‘im _this,_ ” he says.

“Whassit?”

“Her name’s _Vivienne,_ ” says Kirikou, leering, “and she’s a _helluva_ lotta fun.” He throws back his head and laughs. His current is strange: warped, taut, shuddering with energy. You close your eyes. You’re inside the club now, the music so loud in your ears you can’t hear anything else. The dancers’ currents burn in your neck, their forms lit up on the floor below in brief flashes from the strobe lights, a writhing sea of people. Lights fly up from the crowd, fire and sparks and other things while glittering confetti silvers down, and for a moment you are in the car again and the dancers are screaming and the confetti is snow, and their _emotions,_ high, electric, pushing inside your neck, your head, and exploding like fireworks, brilliant bright bright, too much too much you can’t contain them and you are _going to snap_. With a sound that’s something between a groan and a scream and a sob you snatch a needle from Kirikou and plunge it into the crook of your elbow, feeling the cold liquid enter your veins as you fall to your knees and curl into a ball, hands around your neck, _makeitstopmakeitstopmakeitstop_

and then

it does. For a few seconds all is silent and you uncurl into a kneeling position, watching with fascination as the world slows down, the people around you blurring into incomprehensible ooze. You hold up your arm wonderingly and laugh a little because it’s so _funny_ , fingers too long, dripping from your palm one by one. You imagine you can see white bone peeking up through the red ruin of what used to be your hand, and just as you lean closer-

blood shuddering through veins fragile as glass heart beat beat beat only because of electrical signals from the brain you could stop it if you want, you could stop yourself here and now, just fall down dead. Wes laughs and shakes his head, _quit your shit metalhead_ and you growl and swipe but he evaporates into mist and you feel a bizarre urge to sob because he did that. but then a face looms into view, curly hair brown skin glasses grinning teeth and yells something at you, but it’s not the words you read it’s _him,_ his _current_ , so big and bright and beautiful, sizzling through his body, illuminating his entire form with the force of his life and you are struck dumb by his brilliance, by _all_ their brilliances, so bright and blinding they’re like stars, like the sun if your nose was pressed against its surface bright corona filling you up burning you out eviscerating you like your planet because you are _nothing_ in the face of such power, such longevity. the sun will last until the end of time and you, you are nothing but a filament there and gone again the light their light it burns your eyes and you’re drawn to it, drawn to it like a moth to a flame like a planet to a star, pushing into the brilliant mass of people feeling them spark and crackle against you, catching flashes of eyes burning bright bright feeling their lightning strike and burn against your own, your own wild current, and when you look at your hand it’s glowing _blue,_ so hot too hot their stars are bright but yours is brighter and it leaks from you, sheeting from your hands your arms your hair to smear on the floor, slamming into the sky above and illuminating the crowd, and their lights flare and shift and slide towards you, around you, shudder through you, feed you, and you open your mouth and scream with them because you are a supernova you are a catastrophe lifeblood sprayed across the galaxy

  
you turn and there’s your brother, dancing beside you, glowing blue-hot and smiling

 


	4. soul iii

_(the island)_

The air smells sweet here, like overturned earth and flowers and perhaps a faint hint of petrichor. You inhale deeply, the scents like a balm to your overwrought senses. You relax into soft blankets and stifle a groan. Your ears hurt. Your neck hurts. Hell, your entire body hurts. For a while you lay there and do nothing but breathe. You’re glad you kept your eyes shut, because you sense a human current in your neck, a soft hum concentrating on something that isn’t you at the moment.

You hear the sounds of a knife on a cutting board. Off-key humming. The shuffle of feet on stone.

You open one eye.

A girl, her back to you, faces a stove. For a heartbeat you stare at her, expecting her current to manifest itself in your vision, glowing yellow like the sun, but it doesn’t and you shake your head. It was a hallucination, really, conjured by your brain’s idea of what currents must look like. You squint, grimace, shift a little under soft blankets. The sunlight streaming through the window hurts your eyes.

At the sound of your motion, the girl turns. Green eyes flash in your direction. “Good, you’re awake,” she says, a smile spreading across her features. “Dinner’s almost ready.”

You don’t reply, just exhale deeply and pull the blankets over your head. It’s nice, the darkness, but stiflingly hot, and soon you’re forced to reemerge, face crinkled. “D’you got sunglasses?” you mumble. “Light hurts.”

“One sec.”

Fingers brush your face. Instinctively you jerk away. “It’s okay,” the girl says, tone gentle. This time you allow her to place the sunglasses carefully on your nose. When you open your eyes, it’s much better.

You sit up, groaning, a hand going to your throbbing head. “Not hungry,” you moan as a wave of nausea crashes over you, almost flattening you back to the blankets. Once, when you were six, you and your brother got into Granny’s liquor cabinet and drank yourselves stupid with a bottle and a half of champagne. The resulting hangover pales in comparison to this.

“Well, you’re going to have to eat. You’ve been out for a week.”

A week? It takes your scrambled mind a few moments to sort through the implications. The ship was supposed to be ready in about that time, takeoff as soon as it was done.

 

Oops.

 

You wonder what it was, exactly, that Kirikou gave you.

“Usually your types are out much longer,” says the girl, shoving a spoonful of stew in your mouth. You almost choke, but swallow the hot liquid. “Viv really packs a punch. I guess you didn’t have that much, though.”

“How?”

“How what?” asks the girl, taking advantage of your half-open mouth to give you another spoon.

“How’d you…how’d you know?”

She shrugs. “Blood bot,” she says, gesturing vaguely to a cabinet near the door.

“You a doctor or something?”

“No, not really,” she says. “My mama was a doctor, though, so I picked up a few things.”

“How’d I get here?”

“Found you lying face down in the gutter, about to get robbed,” she says matter-of-factly. “I couldn’t just stand by and let that happen, now could I?”

You narrow your eyes at her. Her current doesn’t twinge or go unnaturally smooth, classic signs of lying. You have no memory of even leaving the party, and moreover, how could a little twig like her have fought off armed robbers and gotten out of it in one piece? You wonder, half-angrily, why Kirikou and his buddies didn’t take you back with them. Of course, they could’ve been so shot up that they couldn’t tell up from down, much less the way back to the ship. In any case, it doesn’t matter anymore anyway. You sigh. The girl slips another spoonful between your teeth. “I’m Maka, by the way,” she says as you swallow.

You don’t volunteer you name in return, instead pushing the bowl away. “Not hungry,” you say.

“Too bad.” Another spoonful. You begin to feel irritated.

“No,” you say, glowering at her behind the glasses. Maka sighs.

“Quit acting like a child and eat the goddamn soup.”

You grit your teeth together. Maka’s green eyes harden. “Eat!” she says, standing up and shoving the spoon towards your lips. Hot stew splashes on the blankets. You shake your head. “I’ll take your sunglasses,” she threatens darkly, and at that you comply, muttering profanity under your breath the whole while.

* * *

_(reconstruction)_

You like the feel of dirt between your fingers. It reminds you of your grandmother. As a child, you would help her in the greenhouse, planting and pruning, picking fruit off the trees and popping it in your mouth when she wasn’t looking. You shake your head a little at the memory.

“What’s up?”

You turn. Maka towers over you in a baggy sundress and muddy old boots, a wide-brimmed straw hat protecting her face from the sun. Her hair is beginning to escape from its knot, as evidenced by the strands of ash blonde waving lazily in the breeze. You look away and shrug. “Thinking, s’all.”

“What about?”

“Nosy little girls who don’t mind their own business.”

Maka’s current stabs your neck with her irritation. “Oh shut up. If I’d minded my own business your miserable ass wouldn’t be sitting here right now.”

“Mmm.”

You stand, joints creaking, and wipe your brow with your discarded t-shirt. The first time you took it off, you caught Maka staring openly, green eyes wide. “S’nothing,” you mumbled, rolling your shoulders, reading the curiosity and surprise in her current. You flinched when she touched you, fingers brushing the skin of your back.

“It’s pretty,” she murmured. “Pine tree, right? The white ink was a good choice.” Then she had lifted her shirt and showed you hers, a dragon winding up her side, black ink vibrant against her pale skin. Unlike yours, it didn’t move. “It reminds me to be brave and fierce and a lot of other things,” she said, running a hand on it affectionately before covering it once more with her clothing.

“M’pretty sure that’s all of them,” you say now, gesturing to the neat little rows of freshly-planted herbs basking in the blistering Mawoid sun.

Maka puts one gloved hand on her hip. “I’m impressed. Who would’ve thought a starship mechanic knew how to garden?”

“Not me,” you say, and she gives you a playful shove. “Help me load these in the truck.”

Maka Albarn, twenty-two, lives on one of the many floating islands scattered above Mawu’s surface. More than once she’s found you on your stomach, peering languidly over the edge. She has a small cottage with a single bedroom and a very large garden, consisting of everything from Terran flora to native Mawoid fruit to genetically-modified pitcher plants that hum when touched. Since you shook off the last lingering effects of the drug, she’s put you to work. More than once you’ve come in as the sun was setting and collapsed on the couch, too exhausted to talk, much less shower.

(you still can’t sleep, though)

//

“Fuck, Maka, your car is _shit_. S’broken down _again_.”

“Don’t call it shit!” She hurls one of her _precious, antiquated, genuine Earth-made_ hardcovers at you, which you narrowly avoid. The book lands behind you with an unceremonious thud, skidding a little on the hardwood floor.

“Pick it up!” she snaps, current sizzling with annoyance.

Your mouth turns down at the corners. “ _You_ threw it.”

“I said _pick it up,_ you stupid good-for-nothing... _spark plug!_ ”

You snort. You’re pretty sure no one’s ever called you a _spark plug_ before. You lift one hand up, crackling with electricity. “No way.”

“ _Yes_ way,” Maka hisses, marching towards you, another hardcover (where the fuck did she get another one so fast? the shelves are across the room from the kitchen) held threateningly in her hand. She knocks your arm out of the way and slams the book down hard on your skull.

“What,” you say when you’ve recovered sufficiently enough for speech, “the _fuck_ was that.”

“Don’t call my truck shit,” she says, and you’re surprised to detect other things beneath the anger quivering in her current: vulnerability, sadness, the crackle of wounded pride.

You press your lips together and sit back against the wall, brushing your hair out of your eyes and scooping the hardcover into your lap. “Ah. Okay,” you say, and Maka’s eyes narrow suspiciously.

“What does that mean?”

You shake your head. “S’nothing.”

“Liar. Tell me.”

It’s with a strange sort of reluctance that you reveal another of your abilities. “You felt…sad.”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

Your eyes lift to the ceiling. “Ah. Um. I could feel your, you know, _feelings_.”

“What.” Her confusion tickles your neck.

“Y’know…emotions…chemical changes in your brain…whatever…”

“Not what I meant, stupid.”

“They affect your…current,” you say. “Which is our word for the bioelectricity generated by anything that’s alive.”

“So you can sense my…current?”

“Yeah.”

“So that means you can hear my thoughts?”

“…not exactly. Just your mood.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah.” You sigh. “Right now you’re annoyed, embarrassed, and curious.”

“How do you tell all that from my _current?_ ” she asks, with a little shiver of surprise.

You gesture to the dark spots on your neck. “These. They sense differences in the flow. Emotions affect a lot more than just your thoughts, y’know.”

Maka comes and sits beside you on the floor. “I wondered about those,” she says, jerking her chin at your neck and handing you an elastic band. “I knew you were from Khione, but I couldn’t remember what the spots were for…”

“Took a class, I see,” you say as you tie your hair into a ponytail.

“ _No_ ,” Maka says indignantly. “I was curious so I did a bit of reading. I was twelve.”

You glance at her. “How old are you?” you ask.

“Four hundred and six.” You grunt and stand, taking the book back to its place on the shelf.

“Now I know four things about you,” Maka calls as you walk out the door. You don’t answer.

After a while, she joins you where you sit in the shade of a broadleaf tree, its current humming soft and low in your neck. “The truck was my mama’s,” she tells you quietly.

You forgive her for hitting you.

//

“You have nice eyes,” you tell Maka one afternoon.  “Where’d you get them?”

Maka stiffens, current spiking with anger and suspicion. “How’d you find out about my eyes?”

You’ve known about them almost since the first day you woke up here, but you don’t tell her that, instead lifting a hand to your neck. Maka sighs. “ _Riiiight._ You and your-“ she makes a face and waggles her fingers- “electro-powers.”

You roll your eyes, leaning across the table to get a closer look at Maka’s. Green, perhaps a shade too vivid to be entirely natural. Up close, they shimmer with a subtle iridescence in the sunlight. “Hold still,” you murmur as one thumb gently lifts her eyelid. The whites of her eyes are unmarred by veins. You can see fluid glittering in the sockets. You watch, incredulous, as the dark pit of her pupil expands a little in the shadow you cast over it. You’re in awe of the craftsmanship: delicate, beautiful, perfect, the result of unimaginable precision and patience. Your hands itch a little. You want to know how to make something like this.

“Nowadays they have models that can record whatever you see,” Maka says, and you’re startled by her voice, so close, her hot breath on your cheek, ghosting over your lips. You jerk away, the force of the motion causing you to lose your balance and fall to the floor, landing painfully on the table in the process.

“Shut up,” you mumble from the ground, looking anywhere but at Maka, whose laughter only adds to your humiliation.

You’ve closeted yourself in the bathroom, because that’s the only other room in the house. A knock on the door announces Maka’s presence. “Geek,” she says through residual giggles. “When you’ve gotten over yourself, come out and help me. There’s peaches that need picking.”

//

You _hate_ market days.

It’s hot on Maka’s island, where there’s wind, and even hotter where her shop is, located on the ground in the city. What’s worse is that you have to wear the warm, soft muffler around your neck or else everyone’s currents will drive you crazy. Knowing what she knew, Maka let you stay back for a while, but soon she was nagging you to come along, claiming she “needed someone to protect the fruit.” It was only when she offered to take over the handling of the duster bot (which was an insufferable pest of an AI that never did what you told it) that you agreed, although you soon came to regret swallowing Maka’s bait.

You sit outside in the shade of the awning, which you recently repaired, and ask if you can take your shirt off because you are fucking _melting_ in this heat. She frowns thoughtfully. “Okay,” she says. “But I’ll need you to stand…right there.”

“Are you joking.”

“Actually, it’s not optional anymore. Take off your shirt and stand just to the left of those bins.”

You groan and comply, not missing the hardcover that somehow appeared in Maka’s hands where there was none before. “You bitch,” you say, slumping against the shelves and making the hovering platforms sway a little.

"Straighten up and take off your hat,” is Maka’s reply. “You’ve got that exotic alien thing going. And you’re not bad-looking, either. Oh hey, a customer!”

You zap her on the neck.

* * *

_(essence of truth)_

You still can’t sleep no matter how much work you do, so when it’s late and Maka has long since retired to her room, you’ll climb up the thick vines growing on the cottage’s western wall and lie down on the roof. Despite the city’s light shining brilliantly below, you can still see the stars. _Come back_ , they whisper softly, little distant points of light drifting in a liquid black sea, twinkling enticingly.

You close your eyes. It’s so quiet here, so warm, so delightfully lonely. The air smells sweet, like flowers and growing things, and you can feel their electricity, murmuring sleepily in your neck. For a time you don’t think, listening to the plants and the trees and the current of the planet itself, a deep rumble that is so similar to the one you crave it makes your chest ache.

“Soul?”

Maka’s voice sounds so small, swallowed by the night. You frown a little. She went to bed an hour or so ago and doesn’t wake easily. You zero in on her current, which thrums with worry. “Soul!” she calls again, her anxiety increasing. “Where are you!”

In answer, you send a bolt of lightning arcing through the air above her. Her current goes smooth with relief and spiky with anger. “Why are you on the roof?!”

You don’t answer, just follow her motions as she stomps around the house and climbs up the vines. Soon her sandals are in your face, her hands on her hips, her hair messy and framing her features as she glares down at you. “Answer me!”

“I can see up your shorts,” you tell her, and she gives a groan of frustration and aims a kick at you. You grab her foot and send a different kind of current into her, one intended to paralyze. It works flawlessly. Maka crumples, body rendered limp and inert.

You sit up and look into her angry eyes. “Why are you so mad?”

After a few moments, you lift your hand, stopping the current, and Maka sits up, gasping and spluttering. “Never do that to me _again,_ got it?”

“No promises.”

“ _Soul…_ ”

You don’t answer, simply lie back down and return your attention to the stars.

Sometime later, Maka sighs and uncurls, lying on her back like you. “Do you know what it feels like to be blind?”

“No.”

“It’s the worst feeling in the world,” she says in a low voice. “You’re all alone. Powerless. It’s like a nightmare, except you can’t wake up.”

“Mmm.”

“I had a dream about you just now,” she murmurs. “It was afternoon and you were by the edge like you always are, except you were standing and your back was to it, and you smiled a little and waved goodbye and just…” The shingles creak as she shifts position. “And then I got up to get a drink and you weren’t on the couch and I thought…” Her voice trails off. You don’t miss the wobble in it.

“But,” she murmurs, “I have no right to care about you because I’m a _Terran_ , and we all know what Earth did to-”

You cut her off. “It wasn’t your-”

“ _Yes it was!_ ” she cries. “I joined the military! When I was sixteen I ran off and joined Earth’s military because I was young and stupid and full of bullshit dreams! I _believed_ them, Soul,” she says, and now suddenly, unexpectedly, she’s crying, breaths hitching, current stabbing your neck with the intensity of her guilt. “I _kn-kn-knew_ it was wrong,” she sobs, “knew it deep in my gut but I didn’t listen, I thought you were all _m-monsters,_ but then when Anya hacked your newsfeeds…the _children_ , Soul! And then we were at your planet and I saw the city lights and I thought, _it looks just like Earth_ , and I ran so fast but I was too late!” She shudders, curled in a ball. “I’m sorry,” she moans. “Oh my God, I’m so sorry.”

You are going to drown in her anguish. You need to get away, quickly, and so you do, leaping from the roof into open, empty air.

“The commander’s voice was so _cold,_ ” Maka groans, but the rest of her words are torn away by the wind.

//

The pine tree stirs first.

Its current responds to the sun’s watery morning radiance, blossoming warmly in your neck as it greets the day. You roll over and groan a little because you spent the night curled among hard roots, your sleep light and gray. For a while you lay in silence, listening to the birds twittering in the branches and gathering your wits.

Later, when the sun is a little higher in the sky and the dew has all but vanished from the grass around you, Maka appears, a barefooted wood nymph bearing two steaming bowls of oatmeal and red-rimmed eyes. She settles cross-legged in front of you and wordlessly hands you one of them. Silence stretches between the two of you, broken only by the clink of spoons on ceramic and the rustle of wind in the trees.

“I meant to tell you sooner,” Maka says when her bowl is empty. You swallow your mouthful of oatmeal and regard her impassively. She fidgets a little before her eyes flick to yours. “But I didn’t want to lose you.” Maka swallows convulsively, blinking rapidly even though there are no tears. “I’m sorry.”

You’re quiet for a long time as you digest her words. Maka hiccups a little and doesn’t look at you.

“Stupid bookworm,” you mumble, and you reach across and brush her overlong bangs from her eyes. You don’t know what else to say so you just sit there, statue-still. After a few moments you realize your hand is still on her forehead. With a grunt of embarrassment you retract the offending limb, but Maka catches it about halfway down. Iridescent green meets vermillion. In her metal eyes, you see her soul.

When she laces her fingers through yours, you don’t pull away.

* * *

 

_(smile)_

“It’s unfair,” Maka mumbles. “How do you have hair this soft and shiny and not even use shampoo?” You can’t do much more than grunt in reply, because her fingers twining through your locks and massaging your scalp feel so damn good. “You need a haircut,” she says, tugging gently on a strand. “It’s growing past your shoulders.”

You shrug, said body parts bumping up against Maka’s arms. “S’fine. Like it long.”

“Do you now,” she murmurs, pulling away. You eye her pleadingly, and she sighs, turning from the terminal screen back to you. “You’re such a child,” she tells you, but you know she isn’t really annoyed. Her fingers return to your hair and a contented hum builds in your throat. “Or a cat,” she says, scratching behind your ear. “How old are you again?”

“Three hundred thirty-two.”

“No wonder your hair’s white. Grandpa.”

“Shaddup, Tiny Tits.”

When she hits you, you laugh a little, teeth flashing in a sharp-toothed grin. The action surprises you, because you can’t remember the last time you smiled.


	5. tsubaki i

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tsubaki's fanmix [ here ](http://8tracks.com/sleepmarshes/i-got-dark-only-to-shine)

_(tsubaki and black star)_

“Uba-san,” you say, and feel a flicker of guilt for the thing you’re about to do, “can I have a glass of water?”

“Of course, Tsubaki-chan,” says the robot in her dulcet tones. She runs her hand lightly atop your head as she walks by, hips swaying beneath her robes. As soon as you hear her footsteps fade you dart out of your room, long dark hair streaming behind you as your hurtle headlong down the hall.

Your parents had left for the summer, leaving you bereft of company and utterly bored. Your older brother had stayed behind like you, but he refused to play, slamming the door shut in your face before you could even get the words out. Uba-san had kept you in your room for most of the past week, only allowing you out for a little while when what she said were “designated times” rolled around, because you had to be kept a secret from everyone.

But it’s exhilarating, sprinting through the vast labyrinthine halls of the palace when you shouldn’t be. Intricately painted doors flash by, tightly shut. Your feet pound on the cool wood of the floor. You know every inch of your home, having explored it rigorously on days when you had nothing else to do, and in no time you’re bursting through the heavy double doors and out into the hot afternoon sun. You’re momentarily dazzled, and you squeeze your eyes shut because the light is so bright it hurts.

You hear him, though.

His shrill voice bounces sharply off walls and trees and ground over the tinkle of falling water, an impressive display of energy in the face of the hot, sticky lethargy that pervades the still air. Once your eyes have adjusted, you stare at him openly, a knobby little twig of a boy with dark brown hair and a grin that fills his whole face, lips parted in an exultant shout, skin tan and shimmering as he scoops up water and sends it arcing into the air. It hangs there briefly, little diamonds crackling with sunlight, before falling with soft splats to the earth, staining the stone around it a darker shade of brown. He stands tall and straight in the fountain as if he owns it, and for a moment you believe he does, even though you’ve never seen him before in your entire life.

“WHO HAS COME SEEKING THE AMAZING BLACK STAR?!”

The loud voice, directed at you, startles you, and you almost bolt right back into the palace before you remember who you are. “The PRINCESS!” you shout back, and immediately regret the words because both Uba-san and your father have told you over and over and _over_ how important it is that nobody ever know that there is a princess in the first place.

“COME CLOSER!”

You straighten and put your hands on your hips, lifting your chin with a bravery you don’t feel. “NO, YOU!”

The boy thrusts his naked chest out and steps onto the rim of the fountain’s pool, hands fisted on his hips. “THE GREAT BLACK STAR DOESN’T OBEY ORDERS FROM STUPID GIRLS!”

You grit your teeth and march forward, ignoring the burn of the hot stone against the soles of your feet. When you’re close enough to see his stupid smirk, you reach out and shove him with all your might. He topples back and falls into the water with an almighty splash. You’re still glaring at him, (albeit from ankle deep in the water; that ground was really hot) when he surfaces, coughing and spluttering. “Please don’t talk to me that way,” you tell him, and he just stares at you incredulously for a few moments before anger sets in and he gets to his feet. It isn’t a very impressive move, considering how short he is, but you still back up a little as he stomps towards you.

“YOU PUSHED ME!”

You wince at the volume. “You called me stupid,” you say.

“AND?!”

“And I didn’t like that.”

“NOBODY PUSHES A GOD!”

You frown. “A…god?”

“DUH! I’M BLACK STAR-SAMA, GOD OF EVERYTHING! FEAST YOUR EYES, MORTAL!”

You can’t help but giggle a little. “Okay. My eyes say you taste like cinnamon.”

“CINNAMON IS LAME.”

You cover your ears. Black Star-sama looks affronted. “Sorry,” you say. “You’re really loud.”

“Well, y’know what, YOU’RE LOUD!” He bends down and before you know what’s happening he’s splashing you with water and you’re splashing him back and shouting and laughing right along with him and it’s the most fun you’ve ever had in your entire six years of life, there in the sun in the fountain in the middle of the courtyard, because a princess isn’t supposed to shriek or be chased or run around in only a thin white shift in the hot afternoon sun, breath coming in sharp gasps in and out of her lungs, exhilarated and carefree and _real_ -

“There you are,” says a voice, and before you can so much as blink, Uba-san’s cool hands close around your middle and lift you right out of the water, a dripping, panting, surprised kitten. Helplessly you gaze down at Black Star, whose eyes (green, like the sea), have gone wide, presumably because he’s found out you weren’t lying.

“See you later?” you say softly, hesitantly. For a few moments more he stares at you with no change in expression, and then he smiles, big and wide. “YEAH!” he says, and you can’t help but grin back. You wave to him as Uba-san turns around and marches back to the palace, and when you crane your neck backwards you see he’s waving too.

* * *

 

_(tsubaki and the emperor)_

“Remember,” says your father as he pushes the knife into your hand, “it’s all in the wrist.”

You eye the blade apprehensively. It glitters in the sunlight, a sleek, sharp-toothed predator. You half-expect that it’s going to spring to life and bite, but with your father beside you, dark eyes gazing expectantly into your own, you have no choice but to tighten your fingers around the cool metal handle and take it from him.

He crouches beside you and guides you through the motions, strong warm arms encircling your own. For a few moments you pretend that he is only teaching you to dance, like you wanted, but all too soon your father steps back and it is only you, cold and alone with a knife gripped tightly in your palm. The target seems so very far away, the blade wickedly sharp, thirsty for blood. You swallow. Beside you, your father nods encouragingly. “Go on, Tsubaki-chan,” he says. You take a deep breath. Like a dance, you think, and you step forward and as hard as you can you hurl the knife at the target. It spins, end over end, brilliant and sparkling and beautiful, only to slam clumsily into the canvas and clatter uselessly to the earth. You press your lips together and look at your feet, but your father has a different view on things. “Very good,” he says warmly, and you look up at him in surprise. One big hand reaches down and ruffles your hair.

“Again,” your father tells you once he’s retrieved the knife. This time, you take it without hesitation.

* * *

 

_(tsubaki and black star)_

“WHAT?!”

In his shock, Black Star falls off the wall. It’s not very high, though, made more for decoration than protection. He sits up quickly, twigs and leaves from the bushes below tangled in his hair. “No fair!” he shouts up at you. “Why can’t your dad teach me too?!”

You shrug a little at that but don’t answer, instead turning around and extending a hand. “Royalty always have all the fun,” he grumbles as you pull him up.

You press your lips together as an idea occurs to you, an idea which, even now, you know your father wouldn’t approve of, because learning how to swing a sword and throw a knife and kill a man with your bare hands aren’t skills that are commonly taught. Your eyes flick to Black Star, who has his mouth open to catch the snowflakes as they drift softly to the earth, looking so small in the ratty, oversized coat he wears. You swallow.

“I could teach you, if you want,” you say, and out of the corner of your eye Black Star stiffens.

“ _Really?_ ” His voice is quivering, hopeful, incredulous. You turn your face to him and his expression, green eyes blown wide, mouth slightly open, makes you giggle.

“Yes,” you say, smiling in spite of yourself, and with an inarticulate yell of excitement Black Star flings his arms around you, causing you both to lose your balance and slip off the wall and into the snow.

* * *

 

_(tsubaki and masamune)_

“One more time,” says your father, and Masamune grits his teeth. He comes at you running, katana whistling as he slashes it through the air. When his blade clangs against yours it jars your arm and you stagger a little under the ferocity of his attack. Out of the corner of your eye, Kishimoto-sensei whispers something to your father.

You switch to your left hand, because your right hurts too much and your instructor wants you to learn to fight with your non-dominant arm anyway. You’re not very good with it yet, though, and Masamune beats you quickly, sending your sword clattering to the earth. You see a storm in his black eyes, dark and crackling and dangerous when they meet yours, and suddenly you’re afraid, throat bobbing against the cold steel point he has pressed against the naked skin of your neck.

“That will do,” Kishimoto-sensei says, and suddenly Masamune is gone. You lift a hand to your throat and it comes away stained red.

“Ah, F-Father,” you say. “Kishimoto-sensei. Would you please…excuse me?” You’re struggling to keep the tremor out of your voice, because you are eight years old and the sight of your blood, glistening and sticky and smeared bright bright red across your palm, should not scare you anymore. But you can feel the tears prickling at your eyes and the tightness of panic in your chest and a part of your brain is wondering if this is how you die, right here, right now.

Instead, your father only smiles. “Come here,” he says, and you trot forward, the motion shaking a few stray tears from your eyes, much to your chagrin. Your father, however, seems not to notice and instead takes your hand and leads you to a small shelf mounted on one of the ornate columns marking the perimeter of the training pavilion. He reaches up and from a drawer pulls something long and flat-looking. “You’re okay,” he murmurs soothingly. “Remove your hand for just a moment.” You cry a little as you catch sight of your palm, sticky rivers of blood oozing dark and thick in its crevices.

“Now, hold still, even if it tickles,” your father says, kneeling down in front of you, and he pushes a button on the device, which hums to life. He passes it over your neck, feather-light, and suddenly you feel an intense itching sensation, like the skin there is crawling with insects. Your father must see some of the panic in your eyes because he puts one large, warm hand on your shoulder. “It’s okay,” he says, low and soft and just for you, and you bite your lip and nod and soon it’s gone. Hesitantly, you reach up, and when your father doesn’t stop you, your fingers glide over the skin of your neck, now smooth and whole and definitely cut-free.

“How did it-“

“ _Nanos_ ,” says Kishimoto-sensei, strolling up and leaning casually against the column. The word is foreign, rolling large and round off his tongue. Your father straightens. “They repair damaged skin and tissue.” Kishimoto-sensei laughs a little and pats your shoulder. “Now you’d better go get cleaned up. Blood is unbecoming on a princess.”

“Masamune!” your father calls, and your brother materializes from the shadows, skinny and fourteen and sullen as could be. “Apologize to your sister.”

Your brother’s lip twitches. “Sorry,” he says, and bows stiffly. “I didn’t mean to hurt you.”

“It’s okay,” you say with a smile, and you mean it. Your father ruffles your hair and gives you a gentle shove towards your brother.

“Now, escort Tsubaki-chan back to her quarters. Uba-san needs to wash all that blood away.”

“As you wish, Father,” says your brother, bowing again before he takes your hand in his.

“Onii-chan,” you say, grasping onto Masamune’s hand tightly even though his fingers curl only vaguely to encircle your own, “why did Father come to training today?”

Your brother rolls his shoulders and makes a noncommittal grunt. “Dunno. Probably just wanted to see how we were doing.”

Masamune has longer legs, so you have to walk fast to keep up with him. “Oh,” you say, and the two of you walk in silence all the way back to the palace. No matter how hard you try to catch his eye, your brother refuses to look at you, and your heart twinges a little in your chest. Perhaps it’s because he thinks it’s uncool to be seen with someone so much younger than himself.

“Well…’bye, then,” you say softly once he’s delivered you to your room. Your brother makes no reply, dark eyes settling briefly, coldly on your own before he turns and disappears down the hall without a word.

* * *

 

_(tsubaki and black star)_

“HA!”

Black Star’s shout is exultant and right in your ear. You flinch as hot smelly breath and spit rain down on your cheeks. With a hiss of annoyance you knock your forehead into his.

“Don’t shout in my face!”

“Yeah, yeah,” he says, rolling off you. “But I beat you! For the first time!” He leaps to his feet and dances around you, singing “I beat Tsu-baki” happily at the top of his lungs. You brush the dust off your clothes, stand, and smile.

“Yeah, you did,” you tell him, no trace of resentment in your voice. Rather, you feel a swell of pride, because you’ve taught him well these last four years. Even so, you still trip him as he twirls by, sending him sprawling face-first in the dirt.

“I’m going to have to pummel you for that,” Black Star growls, getting to his feet. “Even if you are a girl. And a princess. Nobody, and I mean _nobody,_ trips the great god Black Star and lives to tell the tale.”

You just smile and settle into a fighting stance.

Black Star rushes you, a yell building in his throat. You dodge the first punch he throws and aim a kick at his knee, which he barely manages to avoid. Since you were six, the two of you have met here, in this small clearing buried within the vast forest that swathes the Imperial Canyons like a shroud. If you look closely, you can see the roof of the palace peering through the trees, perched on the highest outcropping of rock like some squat, vigilant hawk.

The geography of this particular part of the planet Amano-Iwato is, you decide, the reason that the colony was established here some three centuries ago. The canyons are incredible: stretching up for kilometers and kilometers and kilometers to vanish into the clouds, their sheer vastness almost incomprehensible, covered in lush forest. Your tutor says that they were formed long ago, when the planet was young, by a combination of tectonic plates and rapid erosion by the fast-flowing Ao River, whose waters are able to melt the flesh from bone in a matter of minutes.

The city of Tomuro, the first and so far only one on Amano-Iwato, was built into the walls of the canyon, clinging to ledges and burrowing into the rock alongside the native flora. The sheer size of the Imperial Canyons make distances seem deceptively small. The city’s widest point is over fifteen kilometers wide, but expeditions deeper into the uninhabited parts have discovered gaps of over two hundred kilometers. There are no bridges connecting the two sides of the city. Most people fly across using exoskeletons or even endoskeletons, while others take cable-cars or use Borean-made hovers that seem clumsy and out of place here in this world of nature-inspired _everything_.

Black Star lands a kick to your gut, making you stumble back. You decide it’s time to finish this, so you sweep his legs out from under him as he charges forward and then pin him to the earth, viciously arm-barring him until he cries out.

“I win,” you say, and Star sticks his tongue out. You roll off him into a sitting position, and he mimics your pose.

The grass is heavy with dew and it feels so nice against the bits of hot, sweaty skin peeking through your clothing that you dispense with it entirely, sprawling out on your back in the grass in nothing but a pale blue shift. For a while, you lie in silence, getting your breaths back, and then Black Star turns to face you with a rasp of hair on grass.

“Are you holding back teaching me stuff?”

Your brow furrows. “No.”

“Then how come you always beat me?”

“Because you don’t _see._ ”

“Yes I do!”

“No, you don’t.” You meet his eyes, angry and puzzled. “You need to know your opponent,” you say, remembering Kishimoto-sensei’s words. “Don’t just look, _see._ ”

“Quit your shit and tell me straight.”

You sigh. “Well…you need to be more observant, ‘Star. We’ve been sparring for years. Notice my little movements when we fight. They’ll give you clues about what I’m going to do next.”

Star snorts, but doesn’t make a snarky comment, which you take as a good sign.

“Same time tomorrow?” you ask.

“Yeah.” Black Star cracks his knuckles. “Watch out, Nakatsukasa. I’m coming for you.”

“I’ll be ready,” you tell him, a smile dusting your lips.

* * *

 

_(tsubaki and kishimoto)_

“Doesn’t it hurt?” you ask him, and Kishimoto-sensei laughs.

“Not at all,” he says. “You’ll get these too one day, don’t worry, but for now we’ll start small.”

You peer at the small chevron-shaped bits of metal embedded in his skin, marching in a uniform line up his arm, and then roll up your sleeve, looking at the smooth, pale skin beneath. You swallow convulsively, imagining the hardware embedded there.

“It’s what your father wants,” your teacher says with a shrug, letting his robes drop to cover his arm once more. “Who are we to defy his wishes? Besides, you hardly notice them after a while. Now go and put on that exoskeleton.”

You do, climbing into the wiry metal contraption. Kishimoto helps you a little, telling you how to control it via the touchpad beneath your right hand.

“You’ll fall at first,” says Kishimoto-sensei reassuringly, “but it’ll catch you. Watch.” He runs towards the cliff, arms spread wide, and hurls himself over it. For a few heart-stopping moments he doesn’t reappear and with a strangled squeak you run as best you can to the edge. But then a dark blur whooshes up, bypassing you in a rush of wind to hover in the air. Kishimoto-sensei grins down at you, white-streaked hair framing his face. “Come on, Tsubaki-chan!”  he calls. “There’s no need to be afraid!”

You swallow. You are eleven years old and know a hundred different ways to kill a man. Learning to pilot an exo is nothing.

“That’s the spirit!” Kishimoto-sensei says. You give him a small smile. He’s half-Khionian and your father’s closest friend, the small nodes in his neck letting him read emotions and detect people that could harm the royal family. If you can’t trust him, then you can’t trust anyone.

Far below, the Ao River is nothing but a thin green thread winding its way through the dark depths of the canyon. You swallow and train your gaze on Kishimoto-sensei, who’s swooping around gracefully like a bird, and with a deep breath and a shriek you leap over the cliff.

At first, nothing happens. Panic sets in; you scream for your teacher. But then, abruptly, you stop, hovering motionless in the air, the magnetic engines embedded on every available surface of the exo humming to life. You look at the bands encircling your wrists in wonder; they glow bright blue now.

“See?” Kishimoto-sensei says, swooping in to hover in front of you. “That wasn’t so bad.”

He guides you through the controls, and you catch on quickly. Pretty soon you’re zipping through the air, laughing as you and Kishimoto-sensei chase each other around. Flight is an astounding thing, but even so, you still prefer to have both feet planted on the ground.

“Your control is pretty rough around the edges,” your teacher says, “but it wasn’t bad for a first try. Your father will be pleased.”

“I’m sure,” you reply softly, looking at the ground, and Kishimoto-sensei nods in agreement.

* * *

 

_(tsubaki and uba)_

It’s afternoon. Sunlight filters through the half-open blinds, but you can’t see it because you’ve retreated beneath the blankets, into yourself, curled in a tight ball in the darkness. Tears dry sticky on your cheeks, trickle between your lips. You make no move to wipe them.

( _there are about five liters of blood in the human body. that alone comprises approximately seven percent of its weight. if you drag a sharpened sword just right across the jugular vein, you can see it for yourself, hot and red and tangy, an endless river of life pouring from the grotesque smile disfiguring the smooth skin of the neck)_

You were eight. You were sparring with your brother, and the point of his sword pricked your throat. You thought you were going to die, then, because he’d poked a vein and blood was dripping hot and thick from the wound. But that was nothing, really, nothing at all.

_(eyes are windows to the soul. his were wide, bulging, panicked, mouth open in a scream that never made it past his lips. his neck was like butter beneath your blade)_

You should have known, really. Why else would your father have you learn these sorts of things; why else would he keep your existence a complete secret from the rest of the world? You are the second child and a girl to boot. He probably thought to make you useful rather than have you languish as nothing more than a decoration. He didn’t lie to you, exactly, when you asked why he was doing this- _“I want you to fight”-_ but he didn’t tell you the truth either.

_(you didn’t even know his name, but there was a little boy who called him “Daddy”)_

Your body shudders.

_(stupid stupid pampered palace brat stupid little girl you’re a murderer killer life-stealer murderer)_

The man was an enemy-

_(MURDERER)_

What else could you have done-

_(MURDERER)_

Papa wanted you to-

_(MURDERER)_

the little boy didn’t understand. You heard him as you fled: “Daddy, what’s wrong? Why are you lying there? Why are you covered in red paint? Daddy? Daddy??”

_(MUR-_

“I KNOW!” The words are something between a scream and a sob, and you curl up into a tighter ball, chest aching, as you imagine that poor little boy, now that his papa’s gone, stolen away by _you_

Suddenly, more than anything you crave a mother’s touch, and even though you hate yourself more than ever for it you stumble from your bedroom, to the more expansive chamber where you receive guests. There, Uba-san sits cross-legged on a futon. She looks up as you enter the room, blinking her perfect dark eyes.

“Tsubaki-chan? Your body language tells me you are in distress. Is there something-“

You don’t let her finish. With a strangled wail you hurl yourself into her arms. Her body feels so _real_ beneath your own, soft and hard in all the right places. She holds you in her arms and strokes your hair, murmuring soothingly as you sob unrestrainedly into her shoulder.

“If you hadn’t killed that man,” Uba-san tells you a long time later, “he could have killed your parents or your brother or yourself. He conspired against your father knowing full well what the consequences would be if he was found out. It was either him or everything you hold dear, and you chose the latter. No one can blame you.”

You sniffle a little. “But I still killed him.”

“You still killed him,” Uba-san agrees. “Though it wasn’t a senseless act. There was a reason for it, as surely as there is a reason the sun drifts across the sky. And in my humble opinion, it was a worthy one.”

You look up. Uba-san’s features are arranged into a soft smile, twinkling comfortingly down at you. You sigh and bury your face once more in the fabric of her kimono. She’s just a robot, after all, soulless, merely manipulating you with gestures programmed into her by others many kilometers away. The unexpected thought makes a lump swell in your throat. Uba-san raised you from a baby, all because your biological mother didn’t want her breasts to sag, and is more your mother than your father’s wife ever was.

“Uba-san,” you mumble, face still pressed into her shoulder, “do you have a soul?”

The robot sighs, the sound distorted by a glitchy sort of crackle, making it harsher, more mechanical. “I don’t know.”

“Do you think like me? Are you aware of yourself? Do you dream?”

“I perceive the world around me and react accordingly,” she says finally. “I am programmed to be a caregiver for young humans. I do not know if I think like you, for I have never experienced the human mind first-hand.”

“Do you love me?”

For a long, long time she’s silent. You don’t look up at her face, but the way her arms tighten around you, halting, hesitant, _human,_ tell you all you need to know.

* * *

 

  _(tsubaki and the new year)_

Your heart quivers in your chest as you don the kimono, the cool silken fabric sliding across your skin. What you’re doing so flagrantly disobeys your father that it frightens you, but some suicidal curiosity impels you onward and so you don’t stop. You dress with your night-vision goggles strapped over your eyes, because to turn on a lamp would be to alert Uba-san to your wrongdoing.

(A part of you wants that, wants her to peer in and see you getting ready when you should be sleeping, but a deeper portion trembles with excitement and whispers _no_ to that.)

It’s New Year’s Eve. Your family has gone to bed early so as to be ready for the next day, when the Imperial Family emerges from the palace to greet the New Year, but you have no such duties. Black Star invited you down to the city for the celebration, where he said is where _the real fun happens_. You’d resisted at first, but Black Star, by way of repetition and a few shouts, managed to persuade you.

You sigh and look at yourself in the mirror. Because of your glasses, you look green: pasty skin, verdant kimono. The flower pattern on the fabric waves softly in an invisible breeze, petals floating across your torso, down your sleeves. Your hair is done up in a crown braid, thick and dark atop your head, a few blossoms woven through the silky tresses.

It’s a little surreal, really. There is no sword on your hip, no mask across your face. You are not dressing to kill in the shadows, but rather to celebrate in the light. You marvel at the girl in the mirror, who looks as real and substantial as could be. A small smile appears on your face, and it widens into a silent giggle as you twirl, relishing the impractical sandals on your feet, the impractical bright red robe, the impracticality of sneaking out in the middle of the night when the palace cameras are sure to see you.

You take a deep breath, calming down. It’s time to go. With the push of a button, you lift into the air. Earlier, you’d snuck into the armory and stolen your stealth exoskeleton, a slender contraption calibrated especially for you. You’d also taken some kunai, strapped to your arms beneath the kimono’s voluminous sleeves.

Silently, you open your window and float out of it, into the dark and moonless night.

~

Black Star said he’d meet you in your clearing, but there’s no sign of him. You sigh and sit down, your feet dangling over the cliff on the western edge of your sparring place. Above, the stars twinkle: impossibly distant points of light hanging in inky black nothing. There’s a chill in the air, and you shiver a little, rubbing your arms.

You’re thinking about turning around and going back to the palace when he appears, a dark blur streaking up from the canyon that coalesces into the silhouette of a boy. Black Star touches down on the grass beside you with surprising lightness, extending a hand to pull you to your feet. “C’mon,” he says, taking to the air once more. “We’re gonna miss it!”

“Miss what?”

“You’ll see!”

Your breath catches as the city comes into view. The city of Tomuro always looks beautiful at night. You’ve gone out on exos with Star a few times, and you’d been awestruck at the beauty of your city, little yellow lights glowing softly below, scattered among the trees thickly smeared across the canyon walls. But that was nothing compared to tonight. Traffic flows thickly across the gap, making a river of light between the two walls. The city is a shimmering spider’s web, strung with lights of every color that are brilliant in the darkness.

“If you think _this_ is icy, wait till we land.”

Frowning, you look at Black Star, and he grins and shakes his head before angling downwards, towards the city clinging to the left wall. As he does, his kimono switches on, suddenly going from an indistinct shadow to a crazed Technicolor mess that glows with bright neon colors of every hue. He’s even dyed his hair to match; it’s blue and gelled into outlandishly giant spikes instead of lying flat in its usual dark brown mop.

“Nice costume.”

“It’s the only one fit for a big star like me.”

The two of you touch down in the midst of a crowd flowing through a grassy square. Star grabs your hand, his palm warm and rough in your own, easy and casual. You barely have time to register this fact before he’s dragging you through the people milling about, chattering all the while: “…said they’d meet us and bring along a couple friends, but those guys _never_ show up to _anything_ , y’know, so if they’re not there, we’ll go get food. The stuff they sell here is, like, _orgasmic,_ Tsu, you gotta try it…”

You smile fondly but don’t interrupt, instead focusing your attention on your surroundings. The streets are illuminated with strings of glowing lights hovering in the air, and the Trees hum to one another in their strange language, low and deep, not seeming to mind the myriad of decorations festooning their branches. It’s rare to see them so active, trunks groaning as they sway, branches creaking as they wave in an invisible breeze, and you watch them with wide eyes. They’re celebrating too, these sentient creatures, born and bred here on Amano-Iwato. People pass by, dressed in kimonos and yukatas, holding food on sticks, talking and laughing without a care in the world.

“HEY!” Black Star’s shout jolts you from your thoughts, and you search the crowd, wondering who your friend is waving to so frantically. Your question is answered a few seconds later, when a group of four emerges from the sea of people. Star appears to know them very well, as he exchanges a complicated-looking handshake with a blonde boy and then proceeds to bow mockingly to another with glasses, who bows back in perfect seriousness. “So you flaky bastards decided to show up after all, huh,” he says, and Glasses smiles.

 “Yes. _And_ we brought friends. Tsugumi, Tatane-san, this is, ah, _Black Star_ and…?” he trails off, looking at you inquisitively.

You swallow and force a smile. “Na…Natsume Tsukiko,” you say, stumbling a little on the unfamiliar alias. You can feel Black Star glance at you, swift and piercing, but he doesn’t say anything, an act for which you are grateful.

You find out that Glasses is actually named Akane Harudori and his blonde friend is Clay Sizemore, an offworlder from Baldr. The two girls are only thirteen, Harudori-san’s younger sister Tsugumi and her friend Meme Tatane, both of whom couldn’t go unless Akane was with them.

From that point onward, the festival dissolves into a happy blur, lit eternally by golden lights and presided over by the Trees, rumbling low and soft to each other among the buildings. Tsugumi-san and Meme-san are pleasantly shallow, you find, and you listen attentively to their chatter, giggling with them about boys and grousing about homework and other such trivialities. Clay-san flirts with you (Black Star doesn’t seem too happy about that, a fact which sets your heart to shivering). Akane-san is more reserved, his voice quiet and articulate. You find his conversation enjoyable.

In those hours you become someone other, someone named Tsukiko Natsume, someone who likes studying and kittens and dancing, someone who’s never known what a man’s neck feels like beneath cold steel, someone who is whole and delicate and naïve all at once, and you cradle this girl in your heart, this fragile ephemeral moon child, because one breath and she will blow away. You pray for her at the shrine, pin your wish to a clothesline and plead to whatever god is listening that she’ll grow up and be happy and perhaps never have to kill again.

A long time later, when Akane-san and the others have long since drifted away, you find yourself in the large square where you and Black Star first landed, full of food and contentment. “What time is it?” you wonder idly, and Star shrugs. “Dunno. But I think it’s almost New Year, ‘cuz they’re setting up the lanterns.”

You look around the square. Sure enough, there are paper lanterns coating the grass, small and delicate, filled with flickering golden light. “Will they let them go?”

“Duh,” Black Star says, nudging you. “Why _else_ would they light up a ton of these things?”

You shrug. “I don’t know. I’ve never been to one of these.”

“Ah, right. Sometimes I forget that you’re the-“

You slap a hand over his mouth and glance around fearfully. No one seems to have heard him, but you still shoot him a glare as you lift your palm from his lips. “I’m _Tsukiko,_ remember?” you hiss.

Black Star sticks out his tongue. “Yeah, yeah, Tsu _baka,_ whatever.”

You roll your eyes but don’t snap back, instead turning your attention back to the lanterns. They’re lovely, really: all sorts of shapes and sizes and colors, thin paper creased over slender wires. Lit from within, they flicker with a sort of inner life, delicate creatures of the air ready to fly.

“Oh, hey,” Black Star says, tapping your shoulder to get your attention. “I think it’s-“

But his voice is drowned out by the bells, ringing and clanging over the city, a cacophony of metallic voices raised in welcome. The Trees join in, humming so long and low and loud you can feel it in your chest. Their words reverberate off your ribs, up your throat, and it’s when you think you just might burst from the force of their song that they release the lanterns.

How could you ever have thought they were beautiful on the ground? In the air they are something else: graceful, majestic, drifting slowly upwards all around you, a sea of stars. Wonderingly, your head lifts to watch them as they float away into the black sky. They are so stunning, so free, and around you people are gaping and smiling and pointing, parents lifting children so they can catch one, others standing still in quiet appreciation, couples laughing and holding each other close. You extend an arm and touch one. It’s soft and warm against your callused fingers, and after a few moments you send it away with a gentle push.

“Pretty, right?” Black Star says beside you, his voice uncharacteristically soft. You look at him and the words, they’re stuck in your throat because this night was like nothing you’ve ever experienced before, glorious and free, the most fun you’ve ever had in your entire fifteen years of life, all because of this boy who _saw_ you that hot summer day in the fountain. You blink and his image grows blurry, moist; something hot and wet slips down your cheek.

“Tsu?” He curses softly. “Hey, what’s wrong? Was it something I-“

You don’t let him finish, instead throwing your arms around him and pulling him close. “Thank you,” you choke out, so softly it must be drowned out by the noise of the bells and the Trees and the people. But somehow, he hears your words, because he hugs you right back, and even though he’s several inches shorter he still somehow lifts you and twirls you around, right there amongst the lanterns.

* * *

 

_(tsubaki and black star)_

“T- _tomorrow,_ ” you gasp, because Black Star’s tongue is doing _wonderful_ things between your legs, “I’ll b-become a bird.”

His head rises over the lush mounds of your breasts, dark hair tousled. “Hah?”

“The doctor says I’m done growing, so they can finally implant the endoskeleton. I’ll have pieces of metal in my skin, just like my teacher.”

“Mmm.” Black Star returns to his work, this time reaching up to tease your nipple. Involuntarily, you buck your hips, hitting him in the nose.

“S-sorry,” you mumble, flushing red as he surfaces once more, eyes watering as he rubs his face.

The first time you kissed was just after a training session, when storm clouds were boiling at the edges of the horizon and the Trees in the forest rumbled warnings. It happened quite by accident: Black Star had gotten you in a chokehold and when he released you he didn’t step away, so when you turned to face him he was much too close and before you could so much as blink your lips were brushing his, light and gentle, sending shivers down your spine. You were frozen, unwilling to pull away and afraid to deepen it, while Black Star’s sea-green eyes stared surprised into yours and the wind picked up and thunder rumbled louder and longer. It was only when the rain began to fall, large cold drops exploding against your heated skin that your lips twitched and Black Star pulled away, lovely eyes suddenly averted, a flush that was entirely unrelated to the recent exertion rising in his cheeks, and the only thought in your head then was _no_ because he didn’t understand and if you didn’t do something you were going to lose him-

It was soft and sweet, ask and answer, a wordless affirmation of the attraction that had been building for years upon the foundation of the love that had existed between you since you were children, the affection and understanding of best friends. And he really was your best friend (your only friend really), this boy who saw you not as a shadow but as a girl, who stuck by you, who painted himself loud and bright and sloppy on the walls of your life. He would have been killed for knowing you, because nobody is supposed to realize that the Emperor has another child and that child was the Dark Arm, your father’s most powerful tool, especially not the son of the Borean diplomat, whom your father does not take kindly to at all.

“The recovery process takes a lot of time, so no more…sparring for a while,” you murmur much later, when you’re curled in each other’s arms, bodies limp and sweaty and warm. Star shifts against you and groans. “Aw, damn. How long’s a while?”

You make an indistinct, sleepy noise and pull him closer, snuggling into the curve of his neck. “A year, at least,” you mumble, and Star makes a funny squawking noise and rolls off the mattress, nearly taking you with him. He gazes up at you wide-eyed, hair a rumpled halo around his head, body tanned and muscled and lovely, still skinny as a twig, limbs all tangled up on the floor. You can’t help but smile at the sight.

“What’re you smirking for?”

“You look funny.”

“I never look _funny._ ”

“Yes, you do,” you say, and extend an arm, lazily tracing a pattern on his knee. “And we won’t have to avoid each other for a whole year, actually, if you can be clever and quiet and check your wristcuff more often.”

Star grins, waggling his eyebrows. “I can do that,” he says, and kisses your hand mockingly. “Anything for m’lady.”

You roll your eyes, smiling in turn. “Come back up here,” you tell him. “I’m cold.”

Black Star obliges, lying on his side facing you, legs tangling with yours beneath the blankets. The two of you fall asleep like that, safe and warm in each other’s arms while snow falls softly outside.

* * *

 

_(the monsters came at midnight)_

You awake all at once, as suddenly and completely as if someone had yelled in your ear. The night, though, is quiet, not a sound to be heard. You frown. There is a sense of wrongness about the silence: heavy, malevolent, a great beast crouched, waiting to spring. You stay perfectly still for what feels like hours, the seconds dripping by, breaths slow and light and excruciatingly loud, ears straining for whatever it was that thrust you so abruptly into consciousness.

At last: somewhere far away, there is a _thud,_ so minute you probably wouldn’t have heard it before the operation. You twitch violently, and take to the air with a single thought.

_(you’ve always had a strong intuition, and the few times you’ve disobeyed its whispers, you were very sorry indeed)_

The darkness is thick, liquid, but you blink and shapes begin to coalesce out of the black: your sleeping mat below, blankets rumpled, the small bureau beside it, your closet doors on the opposite wall. Your father didn’t just give you a magnet-propelled flight endoskeleton like your teacher’s; he enhanced your hearing, vision, and reflexes as well. To top it off, he had special nanos injected into your skin, nanos that could fly from your pores and coalesce into whatever weapon you wished: katana, kunai, shuriken, shortsword; anything that didn’t fire bullets, thus truly turning you into a human weapon.

With a thought, the microscopic robots leak from your palm, black liquid elongating into a wickedly sharp blade. Noiselessly, you float across the room, to the door. You bite your lip and open it, wincing at the soft rasping noise, half-expecting some awful night creature to be waiting on the other side-

The hall is dark. Hushed. Nothing amiss. Except for the dark stain shimmering incongruously on the opposite wall.

Your heart skips a beat. Your hand tightens on the handle of your sword and you pray to every god you know of that everyone’s okay, that the blood belongs to the invader as he was wounded by palace security and not…not…

You swallow, close your eyes, take a deep breath, and steel yourself, donning the mental armor you wear each time you go out to kill a man. This is no different.

 _(but you wonder, oh, you wonder why the alarms didn’t go off, why the hidden guns in the walls didn’t fire, why the palace was so_ silent _when it should be a hive of activity, ruthless and purposeful in its attempt to locate the intruder)_

You ghost out the door, ears pricked and eyes wide, katana held in a ready position. Time to dance.

The blood gets thicker as you go on, pooled in great ugly blots on the floor, smeared on the walls, stinking and frighteningly fresh. Your apprehension mounts as you realize where the trail is leading. Whoever made it would be going to the throne room for one reason only: escape through the great double doors. You slow down as you approach the entrance, hugging the wall. Your grip on the katana is tight, white-knuckled. Slowly, slowly, you peer around the corner, into the throne room. And then clap a hand to your mouth to keep from screaming at the scene laid out before you, illuminated in painful clarity by the moonlight slicing through the skylight yawning large in the ceiling.

That man, that man slumped against the doors, looking so small and feeble, he’s your father, he’s the emperor. The heavy brow, the strong jaw, the long dark hair, the big, hulking body: he’s unmistakable. And the woman standing several meters away, her hair short, her form curvy and soft beneath her robes, one slender arm clutching a sword, _oh, oh no no no,_ she could only be Uba.

_(mama, mama, what are you doing here?)_

“The doors here only open one way. Inward,” she says softly in her honeyed tones.

“No,” your father mumbles. One arm scrabbles weakly for purchase against the intricate carvings, uselessly pushing at the handle, too injured to stand and pull and escape. Uba lifts her sword. “No,” your father repeats, “no, _please_ ,” and tears well in your eyes because he is begging, he, the Ninth Sun Emperor of Amano-Iwato, the most powerful man on the planet, _begging for his life-_

faster than humanly possible, Uba _runs_

 _"TSUBAKI!”_ your father croaks, blood flying from his lips, and you surge forward, _“PAPA-“_

“I don’t think so,” a voice whispers, soft and silky in your ear, and then a weight slams into you big and heavy katana clattering out of your hands face slamming into the hard wood floor your father’s awful crackling _wheeze_ (what happened to his voice?) in your ears growing louder and louder only to be cut off so _abruptly_ in this awful choked gurgle

* * *

 

_(tsubaki and masamune)_

your brother, he has you pinned to the earth, face looming over you far away dark eyes wide, more exhilarated and happy than you’ve ever seen him before in your entire life

“Hello, Tsubaki,”

your jealous, jealous older brother, who thought you everything he couldn’t be and more

_(better fighter quicker thinker smarter mind the apple of your father’s eye)_

ever since you were a little girl

he let his anger, his hatred, his jealousy consume him

there is madness swimming in his eyes

* * *

 

_(and still they come)_

“Why, brother?” you choke out, unable to stop the tears from rolling out your eyes, down your cheeks.

Masamune’s grin only widens. “We can’t have you speaking of what you saw here tonight.”

There is a great grinding sound, then, as the mighty double doors are pulled open, too little, too late. Your father’s body slides pathetically to the floor in a pool of its own blood. “Ah,” says Masamune, his smile widening. “You’re late, Kishimoto-sensei.”

_IMPOSSIBLE_

The scream rises in your throat and you begin to thrash, a desperate bid for freedom, but at twenty-four years old he is much bigger, much stronger, and even with the endoskeleton you cannot throw him off. Your teeth snap at the flesh of his arm, so close and yet so far.

“Enough, Masamune,” says a voice, achingly familiar, above you, and you only shriek louder in an attempt to drown it out because you can’t believe it, you _won’t won’t won’t-_

“Shall I silence her?” Uba asks, her voice flat, devoid of emotion.

“That…that won’t be necessary,” says the voice, and then suddenly the breath is driven from you as something heavy crashes onto your chest. You can’t scream as you feel the blood, hot and wet, seep into your sleepclothes, shudder from his lips and splatter onto your face, can only scrabble out from under his limp frame. You rocket into the air so fast you slam into the ceiling with bruising force, knocking what little wind is in your lungs away. It’s a struggle to maintain your altitude, being on the verge of blacking out, covered in your brother’s blood, choking on it, heaving uselessly for air.

“Tsubak-“

“ _SHUT UP!”_ you scream, except it comes out as more of a hoarse gasp. You press yourself against the ceiling, willing your lungs to work as they should, willing your vision to clear, willing your body to _move,_ away from here, out the doors and into the night.

“I’m so sorry,” Kishimoto-sensei murmurs, hovering in the air a few meters away. His eyes are wide, hands curled around his neck.

“ _Liar!_ ”

“I’m sorry,” he repeats, and his voice cracks. “Oh my God, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I had to, they would’ve killed me, oh my God what have I done what have I done-“

“ _You monster,”_ you croak, and wipe your eyes. _“MONSTER!”_

you fly at him, howling, and the nanos flock to your fingers, sprout from the tips as deadly black claws, rake down  his face, pierce the hands cupped around his neck to mutilate the soft sensitive nodes beneath. his eyes bulge and this awful gurgling shriek escapes from a mouth thrown so wide it’s like a black hole, blood flying from between his lips to spatter on your face. suddenly you feel a great weight on your hand and with a start you realize you’ve killed him, the long black finger-claws buried in his neck, hand pinned to his throat in a gruesome mockery of a protective stance. with a sob, you concentracion breaks and the nanos dissolve, floating black and liquid from your teacher and back into your skin. His body drops, falling the long long way down to the cold stone floor where Uba waits, eyes fixed on you unblinkingly, eerily, a smile playing on her lips.

* * *

 

_(nighttime)_

it’s so cold outside. the wind bites at your skin through your thin, bloodstained sleepclothes. you can barely see the city through your tears, barely hear it through the moans that wrench their way from deep in your gut. you arrow through the air, blind, deaf, towards the opposite wall, where the ships are, where you can drown out the screams in your head for a very, very long time.

* * *

 

_(going)_

they ask about the blood, but you pay them well for their silence

* * *

 

_(going)_

the shower water, it was pink

* * *

 

_(gone)_

black star. he had dimples when he smiled

 


	6. tsubaki ii

_(and her grief)_

Somewhere far away, a horn honks, and this is what wakes you. For a long, long time you don’t move, remaining as you are with your feet against the headboard and your body twisted in the sheets as the warm salty breeze picks up and the sun creeps ever so slowly, ever so gently, across your naked skin.

_(three and a half centuries you’ve slumbered. a lot can happen in that time. wars lost, planets destroyed, new inventions, people crumbling to dust. as the long years pass they fade to nothing but a memory, blinking up at you amidst line after line of text_

_the history books told you everything. how your teacher corrupted the robot that killed your parents and your brother, how he was coerced into joining an insurgent organization some five months previously at the threat of death, how it was he who instigated the coup_

_the robot was melted down for scrap_

_amano-iwato is quite different now after three hundred and forty-one years)_

It’s only when the pressure in your bladder becomes unbearable that you sit up, head pounding, eyes burning with a tiredness that suggests you didn’t sleep at all. With a soft sigh, you plant your feet on the cool stone floor and stand, shuffling like an old woman to the bathroom.

The girl in the mirror, she’s changed.

Her eyes are red and swollen, blinking blearily at you from a gaunt, sickly-pale face. She’s thinner, the sharp angles of her bones jutting and prominent. The little metal chevrons, the only visible sign of the endoskeleton hidden beneath her skin, twine fluid and graceful around her legs, her arms, arrow straight down her spine, the skin around them seeming to sag just the littlest bit. Even the nanos are different, the motion of the dark tiger stripes tattooed across her body thicker, more viscous. Her long hair is a tangled, greasy mess, tumbling all the way to the backs of her knees, wreathing her naked form. You take her in, and the crater in your heart throbs, ever so softly.

Your hair has only been cut three times in your life: ages seven, thirteen, and fifteen, and only minor trims at that.

You raise a hand. It trembles slightly.

The tiger stripes drain from your face, your legs, your torso, flowing to your right arm, dripping from the pores of your palm to hover beneath it, slowly coalescing into a pair of scissors. You grab them, your hand black with the unneeded nanos, and slowly, slowly, begin to cut your hair. Great dark chunks of it fall with muted rustles to the floor, piling soft and thick at your feet. Still, you continue, the only sounds in the room the buzz of the electric lights and the sighs of the blades as they slice through each strand.

When you’re finished, the nanos turn to liquid again and seep into your palm, a fine dust of grime falling to the ground as they clean themselves. But you can only concentrate on your head, so strangely light. One hand drifts up and tugs at your hair, choppy and inexpertly done, so short now the tips brush your chin.

_(they still haven’t found out about the emperor’s daughter, and perhaps they never will, because she’s dead, killed that night with the others all those years ago)_

* * *

 

_(tsukiko and noah)_

They streak by in droves, starships of every size and shape and color framed against the vibrant blue-green of the sky: large cargo liners and insect-like personal fliers, long pill-shaped pleasure cruisers with their multicolored lights and large windows, craft that appear as nothing but a dark blur, the scream of their passage heard seconds later.

“Amazing, isn’t it?”

You turn, looking up from your position on the ground. “Hello, Noah,” you say in Common.

“Yo, Kiko.” He settles beside you, mimicking your pose: legs hanging off the edge to submerge in the warm azure waters of the endless Euryboid ocean. He leans back on his arms and smiles. It’s strangely self-satisfied. “None of this would be possible if it wasn’t for the q-drive,” he tells you. “Truly a triumph of human engineering.”

You close your eyes behind your sunglasses, face tilting upwards to the sun. “The Terrans certainly think so.”

“And for once, they’re right. Age is no longer relative. The whole universe is, at last, accessible to the human race. Don’t you think it’s downright _grand?_ ”

You make a noise of assent, carried on the breath of a sigh. “Although was it really worth the destruction of an entire culture older than the human race itself?”

Noah barks out a laugh. “Ah, Tsukiko, Tsukiko…you’re right…it depends on how you look at it. The remnants of Khione may call it an abomination, even as they use it to zip across the galaxy…”

“I think they blame the Terrans more than anything.”

“Mmm. I think we all do. It’s only a matter of time before the colonies pick up the war where it left off.”

The two of you met one evening, quite by accident. You’d heard they were putting on a play at the amphitheater down on Panepistimiou Avenue, and you had gone on a whim, simple curiosity drawing you from your room and into the warm night air. It was as you were milling around, unsure of what to do with yourself (you knew no one, having not gone out very much since you arrived on Eurybia), that Noah Xinde quite literally bumped into you, spilling his cup of wine all over your clothes. He’d apologized profusely and insisted on paying for your ticket despite your protestations, and soon after the two of you had set to talking. Before you knew it, you’d made a friend, albeit completely accidentally and not entirely warranted.

“Hey, Kiko,” Noah asks suddenly, a new focus in his voice. “I don’t think I’ve ever asked you about those tattoos.” His fingers brush one of the smooth black lines waving softly on your arm, and you gently push him away.

“Oh, you know. I was fifteen and angry and I thought I knew better than my father. So I got these,” you lie, shrugging your shoulders in false nonchalance.

“You were quite the rebel, huh.”

“Yes. I grew out of it, though, as you can see.”

“You know, I don’t really know much about you, Tsukiko Natsume,” he tells you, a finger now tracing one of the metal chevrons embedded in your arm. “Like where you got that lovely endoskeleton, and why you’re here, when you’re so obviously Ami. I’m curious. I want to get to know you a little better.”

You force a laugh, shying playfully away from his touch, but inside, your mind is racing. Why is he asking about you all of a sudden? What’s with that look in his eyes? You play for time. “Well, I don’t know much about you either,” you say, smiling. “We’ve only met a week or two ago.”

“All right then,” he says, and the smile that graces his lips makes something shift uncomfortably within you. Suddenly, you’re grateful for the sunglasses, because they hide your face.

“I’m Noah Elliot Xinde, from the colony world Morpheus, where you have to wear a mask because the atmosphere has hallucinogenic properties. I’m twenty-five years old, biologically and chronologically, and came to Eurybia in search of a quieter life, as I grew tired of wearing a mask every time I wished to go outside.” He gives you a playful nudge. “Now it’s your turn.”

“Well, I’m Tsukiko Natsume, and you’re right, I am Ami. I’m eighteen, biologically and chronologically…my father is a businessman; he works in the capital.” You lift an arm and gesture to the great city-ship in the distance, its gargantuan form bristling with the blocky shapes of buildings and the occasional silhouette of a hovercrane. “He…he’s very busy, so he sent me here, as a young girl by herself in the big city isn’t exactly safe.”

“What about your mother?”

“She died in an accident when I was nine.”

“And the endoskeleton?”

You swallow. “Ah, that…well, I stopped growing last year and I’d always wanted one, so my father paid for my procedure. I figured it would come in handy.”

“Indeed,” Noah says. “Although endos are pretty useless here, as there isn’t very much metal anywhere. Too heavy.”

“On Amano-Iwato, it’s a different story,” you say. “The Canyons are rich in metal ore.”

“Hmm,” says Noah, a faraway look in his eyes, and then he stands, his bones creaking as he stretches. “Well, I’ve got to go to work. See you later, Kiko.”

“Bye,” you say, relief and puzzlement mingling in your mind at the sight of his retreating back.

(you don’t notice the woman leaning against the building some distance away, her face hidden beneath a wide-brimmed hat and a cigarette between her lips)

* * *

 

_(tsukiko and noah and the bounty hunters)_

The sky is so _vast_ : a thick, rich black, grimed over with the glow from the town. Vertigo, sudden and swooping, shudders from your brain to your stomach and back again, and with a small gasp you stop floating on your back and submerge more fully in the warm ocean waters. Around you, the glowfish swirl, agitated by your sudden movement. The small ocean-dwellers aren’t actually fish, but something else, something other, something from before the humans came with their strange machines and ravenous, insatiable hunger. You tread water and they flit around you, nibbling gently at your body, leaving small circular rings of phosphorescence where their mouths touched your skin. The waters of this part of the great freshwater Euryboid sea are so clear, and you can see them easily, little transparent creatures whose insides glow blue-violet.

_(star would have loved them)_

You fill your lungs with air and submerge yourself. It’s quiet beneath the waves, the only sound the low, almost subsonic hum of the town’s motor as it pumps water in and pushes it out, a metal heart propelling it across the sea in unending pursuit of the big city. Far away, you can see the brilliant golden glow of the capital’s underbelly, little lanterns hanging suspended in the black, distant and unreachable. You stay under for a long time, weightless in the water, glowfish weaving through your short, short hair. It’s only when the burning in your lungs becomes too much that you surface, sucking in great breaths of a breeze that suddenly seems much colder than it was.

“I was beginning to think I’d have to jump in and rescue you,” calls an amused voice, and you whirl, sinking lower in the water. There on the edge, where buildings abruptly give way to open ocean, is Noah, leaning against a post.

“No need,” you reply. “How long were you there?”

“Long enough,” he says lightly, and you can’t help the flush that spreads across your cheeks.

“You had no right!” you shout angrily.

Noah’s shoulders lift. “I don’t know why you’re ashamed. You’re a beautiful woman, Kiko. You should be proud.”

“I’m not…not like _that!_ I don’t…I’ve never…not to just _anybody!”_

“That hurts,” he says, putting a hand over his heart. “But I’m sorry. I thought you wouldn’t mind.”

You swim towards the shore, wondering angrily what exactly the people of Morpheus are like if they think nothing of peeping on a woman without permission and then expecting her to enjoy the attention. “Turn around,” you snap, lifting an arm from the water and motioning. Noah complies, shuffling so that his back is to you. “You better not have any…any eye augments in the back of your head or something like that,” you grumble, hoisting yourself up to the shore, water streaming from your form.

“No, of course not,” he says mildly. “I am a mere creature of flesh and blood, nothing more.”

“Mmm.” You dress hastily, in a pair of shorts and a t-shirt with a robe over; your pajamas, in fact. They cling unpleasantly to your wet skin.

“Allow me to walk you home?”

You swallow. Suddenly, you’re exquisitely aware of the fact that the streets are deserted save for the two of you. Looking at Noah, at the way he stands, at that glint in his eyes, almost… _triumphant?_ You smile and shake your head. “No, thank you. My apartment isn’t very far.”

“If you say so…”

More than anything, you wish you could just take to the air, right here and now, but your attempt yields nothing but a faint tug in your bones. “Good night,” you say, and then turn to go, the back of your neck prickling, heart pounding for no reason at-

“But,” Noah murmurs, his hand closing around your wrist, “ _I_ say that you should stay right here, my dear Miss Nakatsukasa.”

He yanks you towards him, your back thudding against his chest, and you feel the cold, cruel edge of a knife against your jugular. Your heart drops. For a moment, you can’t breathe. “W-who?” you stutter, and Noah laughs.

“Don’t play dumb. You and I both know that you’re the last remaining descendant of the Nakatsukasa line. We can’t have you going back and undoing all our hard work, now can we?”

“How did you-“

“Find out? Oh, it was certainly a challenge, but the Movement is very good at extracting our enemies’ secrets. Even with the informer killed we knew we’d track you down eventually. Good move, by the way, stabbing his throat like that. You’re smarter than we gave you credit for.”

You don’t reply. Noah presses the knife a little harder into your neck, and you feel blood beginning to drip from the wound. “You were good company, Nakatsukasa…it’s almost too bad.”

“I agree,” you whisper, and then squeeze your eyes shut, concentrating with all your might on your back, where the nanos have gathered in a darkly shifting mass. Almost before you give the conscious thought, they act, ripping brutally through your clothes and embedding themselves into Noah’s gut, a long, deadly spike sprouting from your skin and pinning his body to yours.

Or, at least, that’s what you expected would happen. Instead, Noah is sent flying, knife raking ineffectually at the nano-reinforced skin of your neck to slam into the alabaster wall of the building behind you, cracking it with the force of the impact. Horrified, you watch as he gets to his feet, laughing and completely unharmed.

“ _Nice,_ ” he says through his giggles, tossing the knife from hand to hand. “Didn’t see that coming _at all._ Truly remarkable.”

“What _are_ you?!” you choke out.

Noah grins. “Only a humble man of flesh and blood!”

He charges, inhumanly fast, the knife in his hands a silver blur. With a gasp, you dodge, raking at his face with black-clawed hands. When you whip around, you see the metal glimmering beneath the skin of his face, torn and ragged from your attack. His grin widens. The effect is frightening. A sick feeling settles in your stomach.

_(your mother’s face flashes before you, perfect, sculpted, a robot’s face)_

“Very good!” Noah says, one hand lifting to his mutilated features. “But not good enough!”

He charges you again. You block the blow with an arm, his blade clanging against your hard black armor, and retaliate with a jab at his eyes, the nanos on your middle finger elongating into a blade. He knocks it aside with apparent ease and slashes at your face. You duck, but even with your enhanced reflexes you’re not quick enough, and his blade slices into the skin of your eyebrow. You stumble back with a cry, blood dripping into your right eye and making it hard to see.

“Hmm,” Noah murmurs. “Your nanoskin is excellent…I’ve never seen anything like it…a shame, really, such a shame.” He eyes you, something almost like _hunger_ in his remaining human eye, and pushes a button on the handle of his blade. The knife begins to glow a soft sort of blue. “I think,” he says, “it’s past time we ended this.”

He runs at you, blade aimed straight for your chest, and you stumble backwards only to slam against a solid, unyielding plastone wall. The shriek bubbles in your throat and the nanos harden across your torso, even though you know that that knife is different, that it will cut through your armor as easily as it could through butter, and you raise an arm, knowing that it’s too late, that any moment now you’ll feel the cold hard shock of a blade in your heart-

**_BOOM_ **

You hit the ground hard, crying out at the impact. You don’t move, stunned, ears ringing, eyes tightly shut.

“Sorry about that,” says a voice from above you, distorted by the high-pitched whine in your ears. “I didn’t want to use a boomer, but in another second you would’ve died so it’s all fine anyway. Besides, I think the reward was _greater_ for his dead body.”

Hesitantly, you open your eyes. A woman, purple-haired and yellow-eyed beneath a large sun hat, towers above you, hands on her hips. She smiles benignly. “I’m Blair,” she says, extending a hand to help you up. “And you are…?”

“Tsukiko Natsume,” you murmur, taking her arm and allowing her to pull you to your feet.

“Nice to meet ya!” Blair chirps. “Glad I decided to tail him tonight; otherwise you’d be dead.”

You make an indistinct noise in your throat, your eyes drawn almost magnetically to the prone figure of Noah, the knife still clutched tightly in one fist. You press your lips together. Blair squeezes your shoulder reassuringly.

“I probably shouldn’t have blown his head off,” the other woman sighs regretfully. “That guy’s been loose for, what, two hundred years now? He has quite the track record.”

“ _Track record?_ ”

“Oh, yeah. He _really_ liked Ami girls, seducing them and then murdering them. You were about to become his latest victim in a long line of the poor things.”

You press a hand to your stomach, feeling vaguely ill. “Oh,” you say, and Blair pats your shoulder comfortingly.

“Don’t feel bad. You couldn’t have known what he was up to.”

“No,” you murmur, but the feeling of guilt still lingers, because it was _you_ he wanted.

Blair taps a small crystal stud embedded in her ear. “Marie? Yep, it’s Blair. I bagged the target; come and get me. I’ve also found a friend.”

There’s a pause, then Blair giggles. “You’ll see! Go get Azusa and then pick us up. I’ll ping you our coordinates. See ya!”

She mutters something, taps her ear, and the white light winks out. “That was Marie,” she tells you. “We’re bounty hunters, because why not? The pay’s pretty good and there are plenty of criminals to hunt down. I think it’s fun!”

She smiles as she grabs Noah’s body, dragging it closer to the edge of the city, where the buildings give way to clear space, her hands beneath its armpits. “You should come with me when Marie and Azusa get here. I saw you fighting with the android, and _wow,_ you’re good! We could use someone like you.”

You say nothing, instead looking up as a star streaks down from the sky, its silver brilliance coalescing into a graceful contraption of planes and angles and points that glimmer in the moonlight. The starship comes to a stop right above you, hovering in the air, illuminating the space around you with bright white floodlights. You squint, blinded by the sudden brilliance.

_(use someone like you)_

“That’s our ride. You coming with?” Blair’s face is reduced to murky shadow in the sharp contrast between the harsh light and the darkness cast by the brim of her hat, but her voice is hopeful, head tilted to one side.

_(one small revenge, one small satisfaction. the blackened crater in your chest throbs)_

“Okay,” you say, and you gaze down at Noah’s ruined form as the starship lifts you towards its waiting maw, into empty space.


	7. tsubaki iii

_(tsukiko and the black forest)_

It’s quiet, save for the low hum of the _Spartoi’s_ engine as it propels the rest of the itself through the air. Your eyes slide shut, heavy with tiredness, the words on the screen vanishing in the darkness beneath your eyelids. For a while you just listen to the ship, to the sound of its breath circulating in and out of vents, to the distant clanks and creaks of its parts shifting under the effort of flying, to the faint rush of wind as the ship hurtles through the atmosphere. A sense of peace steals over you, and you pull the blanket closer around yourself, screen sliding off your lap to land with a muted thud on the mattress. You lie there for a long time, dozing lightly, vague half-dreams blooming like so many splotches of ink against the canvas of your mind.

The four of you had been tracking an annoyingly elusive pair of criminals for a few months now, and according to whispers in dingy bars and shuddering nightclubs, the planet Yaochi was where they’d fled after a close encounter with you on Baldr some weeks ago. Acting upon a few vague tips, you’d opened up a wormhole and catapulted yourselves to the far-flung world, discovered some two decades previously, still wild, still untamed, a vast wilderness of forest and mountains and the occasional large, glimmering lake. You’d searched the planet’s few towns and cities, eavesdropped shamelessly on conversations, interrogated and beguiled and (in Blair’s case) even slept with men in exchange for information, all of which had led you here, to a remote corner in the northern part of the planet, where it is wet and chilly and not very pleasant at all. The landscape here is only trees, great gnarled things with disturbingly flesh-like bark and rather foreboding manners, dripping with moss. Thick white mist casts probing tendrils amongst the trunks and over the thick undergrowth, playing with sound and light and smell.

It’s the perfect place to go when you don’t want to be found, much to Marie’s frustration.

“Hey…lunch is ready. Get over here, everyone. Even you, Azusa.”

Marie’s soft voice in your ear nudges you into consciousness. You don’t move, though, comfortable and warm and sleepy as you are, electing instead to stare through half-lidded eyes at the ceiling of your room. It was painted to look like a sunset by none other than Blair, who, surprisingly, possesses a great talent for art.

“Tsukiko, Azusa,” Marie’s voice says, gentle but insistent, “hurry up. The food’s getting cold.”

“Coming,” you yawn, and realize you said it in Japanese. You repeat yourself, this time in Common, and lift yourself from your bed, hovering above the rumpled blankets before drifting out the door and down the hall, towards the kitchen.

It’s not really so much one room as several, kitchen and living room meshed into one big space dominated by the two large, circular windows in the ceiling. Azusa arrives at the same time you do, climbing up from the bridge. All sorts of little lights are still visible in her eyes, courtesy of her special contacts. The older Ami woman gives you a brisk nod, blinking them away, and together the two of you cross to the kitchen, where Blair and Marie sit at the bar, each munching on a plate of pancakes.

“I thought it was afternoon on this planet,” Azusa says in her heavily-accented Common, loading some of the food on her plate.

Marie shrugs. “I wanted pancakes. What can I say?”

“Don’ be sho _wigid_ all’a time, ‘Zusha,” Blair mumbles through a mouthful of food.

“I am merely making an observation.”

Blair swallows. “You sound like a robot.”

“It’s because I _am_ one,” Azusa says with a small smile, one hand going up to tap the left side of her head, where a small metal node glimmers within her short pixie cut.

“What a shame,” Marie quips, lightly pushing Azusa’s shoulder as she passes. “I liked you better before the operation.”

“Ha ha,” Azusa says. “Without it, I’d be dead.”

“Way to be melodramatic,” Blair laughs, leaning back in her chair. “Sit down and eat your food.”

Companionable quiet falls between the four of you, filled with the clinking of utensils on plates and the sounds of chewing. The pancakes are good, warm and fluffy and sticky sweet with syrup.

“You need to show me how to make these,” you tell Marie when you’ve mopped up the last bits.

She smiles, one remaining eye twinkling. “You could’ve learned today, if you weren’t busy sleeping.”

“You didn’t call me when you started…”

“Make them again tomorrow,” Blair says, swallowing her last bite. “I wouldn’t mind.”

“Ah, that was the last of the flour.”

“Well, damn. I was looking forward to more. Hey, Zusa, ya think we could…Zusa?”

You turn. On Blair’s other side, Azusa has frozen, her back ramrod straight, colorful little lights flitting once more across her eyes. Without a word, she turns and runs towards the bridge. The three of you follow, taking the steps down to the bridge two at a time. When you arrive, Azusa’s palms are flying across the control desk with an almost inhuman speed. Marie, you, and Blair exchange glances, gold on black on gold, before Marie steps forward, her eye hard. “What’s going on?”

“Picked up a signal,” Azusa murmurs. “Ear phone. Very faint. Whoever made the call was trying to keep it hidden. Came from behind us.”

“Ooh, really now?” Blair giggles, yellow eyes flashing with sudden excitement. “Ya gonna drop us in?”

“Yes.”

Blair grins, wickedly eager. “ _Icy_.”

“You have fifteen minutes,” Azusa murmurs, deeply immersed in the ship’s computer as she turns the craft around.

“Aye-aye, Cap’n!” Blair chirps, before dashing up the stairs. On a whim, you lift into the air and streak past her, smiling at her shout of “No fair!”

You catch a glimpse of yourself as you don a dark-colored jumpsuit with the sleeves cut off, neither too tight nor too loose. The girl in the mirror is pale, her bones prominent, her eyes soft and sad. The nanos crawl across her skin, agitated, slim black snakes.

_(but this isn’t anything new, not really. you remember countless nights spent like this, sword in your hand and murder in your heart)_

Blair is already waiting when you emerge from your room, spinning on a stool at the breakfast bar. She wears a jumpsuit just like yours, but the sleeves are intact. A plasma machine gun is strapped across her back. Ammo belts loop around her chest, and a myriad of explosives clink softly on her hips. She sticks her tongue out playfully at you as you approach. The two of you don’t have to wait long for Marie, who motions you in the direction of the cargo hold, long golden hair held back in a ponytail. She, too, is dressed in a jumpsuit. Her only weapon is a hammer, seemingly ordinary but in fact capable of delivering a vicious electric shock to those she chooses to hit with it.

“We’re ready,” she says, hand on her ear. Azusa’s response is immediate. “They’re in a clearing, due north. There’s a shack; I’m pretty sure that’s where they’re hiding. Be careful. Knowing them, I am sure that they have some kind of weapon.”

“So do we,” Blair says, giving you a nudge. “Tsukiko can fly!”

“Not here,” you murmur. “There’s not enough metal.”

“Ahh, right.”

“Try not to kill anyone,” Azusa says. “The reward is higher if they’re captured alive.”

“Aw, shucks…”

“Not funny, Blair.”

Marie chimes in. “We’re ready now.”

“Excellent.” The door in the cargo hold opens, letting in a rush of cold wind. You take a deep breath. “Good luck,” Azusa says, and with a whoop Blair runs forward and throws herself into empty air, you and Marie close behind.

Your suit changes colors, the black turning to the flat gray of the Yaochan sky. The wind, strong and fierce, yanks your hair out of its knot, sweeping it in twisting ribbons away from your face. Blair swoops past you, laughing, while Marie looks faintly green, her distaste of heights obvious on her face. You shut your eyes and pray silently to whatever gods are listening that she doesn’t throw up on your head.

Your fall is broken by the old-fashioned air thrusters strapped at strategic points on your body. You land softly on your feet, while Blair elects to fall the last meter, sinking into the fleshy tree with the force of her impact. Marie almost crashes, and you have to yank her back from the edge.

“Okay,” Marie says once she’s recovered, the hard gleam back in her eye. “Due north?”

“Yes,” Azusa’s voice says in your ear, and Marie nods.

“Alright then. Come on, you two.”

The three of you leap from tree to tree, so large are their branches and so densely are they packed. It’s much easier than hacking your way through the thick undergrowth below, where all manner of things might lurk, and besides that, the fleshlike consistency of the branches helps facilitate soundless movement. The quiet here is almost eerie, broken at odd intervals by the distant screeching of some native creature, a grating, raucous noise that sends shivers down your spine. Even though the forest seems deserted, the back of your neck prickles, as if you’re being watched. Several times you whip around, convinced you saw the glimmer of eyes hidden within the leaves, but no, there’s nothing; it’s just your imagination. The three of you don’t speak until you come upon the clearing. Like Azusa said, there is a shack at the edge, although it’s not so much of a dwelling place as a pile of rotting wood, almost swallowed by the gargantuan trees of the forest.

“You sure the signal came from here, Zusa?”

“When have I been wrong?”

Marie cuts Blair off before she can begin. “Okay. Tsukiko and I will sneak around and enter from the back. Blair, you stay here and tranquilize them if they try to escape. Azusa will pick us up once we’ve got them.”

“Roger,” Azusa says, as do you and Blair, the latter with a small salute.

Marie smiles, and puts her hand on Blair’s shoulder. “Try not to die, okay?”

“When have I ever?”

Marie rolls her eye good-naturedly and then turns to you. “Ready, Tsukiko?”

“Yes,” you say, nodding once, and the golden-haired woman smiles, leading the way into the trees.

The shack is small and mostly windowless. You swallow, hypersensitive ears pricked for the sound of voices, of movement, of anything denoting the presence of human beings in the vicinity. The air is chilly and still, laden with mist. Goosebumps stand out in sharp relief on the skin of your arms. You stay still, eyes half-shut, listening with all your might, but the forest remains as quiet and unyielding as ever. You sigh, brushing a stray strand of hair back behind your ear. “I can’t hear anything.”

A shriek echoes among the trees, made by that same native creature you heard on your way here. You twitch. Perhaps it’s only your enhanced hearing, but it sounds much closer than it did earlier…

“Damn.” Marie’s voice brings you back to the present. You shake your head and tell yourself to focus. “Looks like we’re going to have to walk right up there.”

One corner of your mouth turns downward. Marie sighs. “Not a headlong charge like last time,” she says.

“Good.”

“Well, we’d better get going, now that’s decided…on three, ready?”

You grab her hand as the two of you leap from the branch. Marie shuts her eye, her hand squeezing yours with bruising force. After a brief plummet, the two of you land without injury among the undergrowth.

“You can open your eye now,” you say after a few moments, and with a shuddery exhale Marie relaxes, dropping your hand.

“I’ve killed people, survived several near-death experiences, and stolen no less than six starships, but this sort of thing gets me every time,” she says sheepishly, laughing a little. “Heights just scare the living daylights out of me.”

You smile, cradling your hand. “It’s all right. Everyone’s afraid of something.”

“Sorry about that,” Marie says, glancing at said appendage, and you wave it in dismissal.

“Let’s go.”

“Of course.”

The two of you slip through the undergrowth, all of which is taller than your bodies. It seems bent on stopping you and perhaps absorbing you into itself for some sinister purpose. You suppress a shudder and continue, black blades sprouting from your arms to cut where necessary. Marie follows in your wake. At last, the clearing is within sight again, this time at ground level. The two of you crouch behind a gargantuan root, made soft with moss, peering at the silent, apparently empty shack.

“How’s it going?” Azusa asks.

Marie shakes her head a little. “There doesn’t seem to be anyone here,” she breathes, her hand on the small crystal stud in her ear. “And there hasn’t been, not for a long time.”

“Oh ho, so even having a robot as part of your brain doesn’t make you right all the time!”

“Quiet, Blair. I suggest the two of you be careful approaching. Perhaps attempt to see inside? One of you did bring a telescopic device, I hope.”

“Yes,” you reply, pulling out the small lens and placing it over one eye. It takes you a minute to orient yourself, as the world is suddenly magnified, but you manage to bring the shack into your line of sight. In the dim light, you can’t see much through the small gaps in its walls, just a vague murk that could hold anything. You press your lips together. “I can’t make out very much other than that it’s dark in there.”

“Hmmm…perhaps it’s a trap. They know we’re on their tail. It would be the most logical thing to do.”

“Perhaps,” Marie agrees. “So what should _we_ do, Azusa?”

The pilot is silent for a long time. You squint up at the sky. A great host of small, squeaking aliens glide in your direction, dark against the gray of the clouds. You frown. Something about the sight makes you want to get up and follow them.

“Tsukiko,” Azusa says at last, and you jump. “Open the door of the hut. Form your nanos into an armor of some sort. If they’re inside, let us know. If not, get out of there immediately.”

“Roger,” you murmur, standing. Marie gives you a reassuring smile, but her eye betrays her anxiety. On quiet feet you creep forward, a great shield of nanos hovering in front of you and a katana growing from your right hand. In this manner you make your way out into the open, squinting in the sudden brightness. Cautiously, you skirt the shack, and with one foot kick down the front door, the wood splintering with the force of the impact. Almost immediately, the nanos shudder under the force of several blows, sharp and centered; the hallmark of a hail of bullets. “They’re inside!” you shout, and your katana abruptly dissolves into lengths of rope that reach forward.

“ _Fucking shit, it’s the nano bitch!”_ The voice is grating, low; it makes your skin crawl. With a snarl you sink into a crouch as the loud report of a gun fills the small space, plasma bullets thudding into your shield. You hear the sounds of cursing as the man wrestles with your ropes, too distracted to shoot any more. You stand, overpowering him at the speed of thought, the shield melting away to further strengthen the dark tendrils that encase him in an unbreakable grip.

“I got one,” you say, panting slightly.

In reply, Azusa bursts forth with a stream of profanity in fluent Japanese. Shocked, your lips part and you’re about to ask what in the universe you did wrong when the other Ami woman clears her throat. “Sorry, can’t come get you, currently engaged in aerial warfare. Please stand by.” The link cuts off. You shoot a glance at the man. Encased in ropes as he is, only his eyes are visible, but they leer almost smugly at you. One corner of your mouth turns down sharply in a look of disgust before you run outside, the nano-wrapped bundle trailing behind you.

“Blair,” you snap. “What’s-“

“Kinda _busy_ right now, Tsuki!” Blair grunts. Dimly you can hear the sounds of shouts and the clang of metal on metal. “If you could come give me a hand, that’d be great!”

Helplessly, you whirl. “Marie!"

“It _was_ a trap, goddamnit! Tsukiko, help, I think I’m-“

The link abruptly goes silent. With a squeak, you take off running into the forest as fast as you can, heart in your throat. If something happened to Marie-

“Thank God!” says a familiar voice.

The older woman bursts from the bushes, bleeding from several cuts on her arms and sides. “Come on, come on, come on, I threw a smoke bomb but they’re still right on my tail-“

You turn and follow her into the clearing. Several figures, bodies obscured by shapeless black robes and faces covered with white masks, come charging out of the forest, swinging identical clubs, the most obscene-sounding cries tearing from their throats. “Shit shit _shit!”_ Marie hisses, hammer crackling with electricity. You begin to summon the nanos but realize that they’re all being used to keep your captive from escaping. You throw a desperate look at them, hovering uselessly in the air. The man waggles his eyebrows, taunting, and all you can think is how lovely it would be to slam his body against the ground-

_(slam his body against)_

You go still. Your eyes narrow. Your knees bend, body settling into a position that’s compact, immovable. “Tsukiko?!” Marie says, a panicked edge to her voice. “What are you-“

With a sweeping gesture, you send the nano-wrapped bundle flying, your forehead deeply furrowed with the concentration necessary to move the nanos, laden as they are with the weight of your prisoner. Satisfaction brings a flush to your cheeks as you hear the screams of the robed figures, meaning that your plan worked.

“Nice!” Marie says, throwing her arms around you. “Using him like a wrecking ball was a great idea. The spikes on it were a nice touch!”

You allow yourself a smile. “Thank you. Now let’s go find Blair; she needs-“

Your words are cut off by a _scream._

“Oh my God,” Marie murmurs.

For a moment, you don’t comprehend anything at all but the great shadow spiraling above you, immense translucent wings blotting out the sky. Every beat from them sends a powerful gust of wind rushing towards you, nearly flattening you to the earth. The Yaochan creature _screams_ again, and you flinch, hands coming up to cover your ears. It circles above, coming lower and lower, closer and closer.

“Azusa,” Marie murmurs, her voice strangely calm. “Get us out of here. _Now.”_

“I see it,” Azusa replies, short and harsh, accent more pronounced than usual. “But I am a little _busy right now,_ ” she says, her words melting from Common to Japanese midsentence and then exploding once more into fluent cursing, her voice strangely monotone. “ _Please gimme a minute,”_ she says in Japanese, and then the link cuts off.

“What…?”

“She needs a minute,” you murmur. “She’s a little busy right now.”

“Aren’t we all!”

The two of you break out into a run towards the forest as, suddenly and abruptly, the monster folds its wings and dives to the ground. The impact of its landing makes the ground shudder, and the two of you almost lose your balance. _“Shit!”_ Marie shouts as you crash into the undergrowth, and it’s only then that you realize that your captive is not where he should be and that the nanos have reentered your skin. It’s your turn to swear in Japanese, fingers scrabbling at your scalp.

“ _I let him go!”_ you groan, the words muffled by your hands.

Marie shakes your shoulders. “ _Would you people stop talking in a language I can’t understand!”_

“I let him go!” you repeat in Common. “My concentration broke and he got away!”

“That’s all right, let’s just focus on getting out of here al-“

She’s interrupted by that awful, grating scream. The two of you look up. The creature, a great ugly thing, pink and hairless except for a few pale, isolated tufts on its joints, is looking right at the two of you, its piercing yellow eyes holding you in place. With a loud hiss, it lunges forward, scuttling towards you at an alarming rate, considering its size.

“AZUSA!!!” you and Marie shout in unison, whipping around and running as fast as you can in the opposite direction.

“Get yourselves in the clearing! _I can’t pick you up in such thick forest!”_

“I HATE IT WHEN SHE DOES THAT!” Marie howls.

“She can’t pick us up in thick forest!” you translate breathlessly, and the two of you veer to the side, the monster crashing through the undergrowth behind you. You almost fall when it screams again, the sound reverberating loud and painful in your ears. “What about Blair?” you gasp.

“Roger roger!” the woman in question shouts. “A _aah!_ I’m on my way!”

Gasping and panting, the two of you burst into the clearing and continue your headlong sprint. “You’ll only have one chance!” Azusa shouts. “Grab the chain as I fly by! Whatever you do, don’t let go!”

“What?!”

Azusa doesn’t reply. A low hum shivers through the air and a moment later, the starship dives out of the thick gray clouds, smoke pouring from a wound in its flank, a long chain swinging from its underside. Another starship, a sleek, dark, featureless thing, plunges after it in hot pursuit. You force your legs to move faster. “ _Hurry!”_ you scream back towards Marie, who, lacking any significant body modifications, is lagging behind. You extend an arm and she grabs it, fingers digging into your flesh. The _Spartoi_ is bearing down on you, great twin windows, so like eyes, boring into yours, chain dragging on the ground. You’re not going to make it. In desperation you lunge, leaping forward, a futile act of desperation. Your hand closes around empty air.

“NO!” you scream, and then your nanos, your wonderful, wonderful nanos leap from your arm and wrap around the chain, around Marie, pulling her to you and you to the lifeline, thick dark strings that will never, ever break. Your feet leave the ground and you’re whisked into the air faster than you thought possible, grunting as you suddenly find yourself supporting both your weight and Marie’s. Below, the monster screeches in a sound of obvious frustration. “Grab hold!” you shout to her, and the other woman nods, her eyes tightly shut, fingers fumbling to grab at the large, blocky links.

“Here I come!” shouts Blair in your ear, and as the starship rises, she leaps from the gargantuan tree, arms and legs wheeling wildly, the bright flashes of plasma bullets arcing around her. You reach out and nanos like tentacles fly from your palm, wrapping around her form and lifting her up towards the place where you and Marie cling to the chain.

“I’m hit,” Blair gasps when she’s within earshot, her face pale. Blood leaks from a wound in her side. The chain swings wildly as Azusa performs a complicated series of acrobatics in order to avoid the enemy craft, which has attempted to keep her pinned near the ground. Gigantic starship-grade plasma bullets whistle by, white in the bright sunlight above the clouds. You shake your head, feeling dizzy; it’s getting hard to breathe. “Reel us in!” you gasp, and there’s a great whirring noise as the chain is lifted up, up, up towards the bowels of the starship, still so frustratingly far away.

“I’m gonna be _sick,”_ Marie moans, and you draw your nanos tighter around her body. She leans over and vomits, the sickly mass splattering your ropes and the chain below. You close your eyes and try to control your own rising gorge at the sight. Blair laughs, a little hysterically, but it quickly turns into a gasp of pain.

Suddenly, there is an almighty shriek, the loudest one yet. Your blood runs cold as none other than the monster bursts through the cloud cover below, its yellow eyes fixed furiously, unblinkingly, on the three of you.

“ _Faster!”_ Blair screams, coughing a little on the last syllable. The whirring turns into an ominous groan as the chain picks up speed, clanking and shivering. Closer and closer salvation looms, closer and closer the monster approaches, closer and closer comes the enemy fighter, screaming through the air. The ship shudders as it takes another hit and the chain very nearly stops, to your horror, but then continues with renewed speed, as if realizing the urgency of the situation. The last thing you see before the doors close is the monster’s mouth, open wide, that awful scream blasting from the depths of its throat.

“HANG ON!” bellows Azusa, and the ship shudders as it flies into the wormhole, leaving behind the planet Yaochi and its terrors.

* * *

 

_(tsukiko and azusa)_

“Thanks,” Blair says as you deposit a steaming plate of food on the table in front of her. It’s steak, cooked rare just the way she likes it. Marie and Azusa are already eating, and you watch them semi-anxiously, trying to tell if you did a good job.

Azusa catches your eye. “It is very nice,” she says, lips lifting into a smile. “Marie taught you well.”

“Oh, stop it,” Marie laughs. “It’s all her. I just showed her how to use a cooker bot.”

You smile, a warm feeling kindling to life in your chest. You’ve created something, something real and good and wonderful. You take a bite out of your own cooking and nothing has ever tasted so good.

“When can I get these bandages off, Zusa?” Blair grumbles, her hands rubbing at the white gauze beneath her shirt. “They itch.”

“In three days.”

Blair’s forehead thuds gently onto the table. “I can’t take it anymore,” she moans. “I _hate_ not being able to wear tight clothes.”

“Oh, hush, Blair. There’s people starving in this universe,” Marie reprimands gently.

“Why did they have to go to _Yaochi_ anyway? There’s nothing there!”

“Why indeed,” Azusa murmurs.

“Well, they probably wanted to shake us off their trail,” Marie says, conversationally speculative. “The environment is so hostile; they probably figured it’d finish us off for them, or at least injure us in some way.”

“Yes, yes, but can you explain the presence of those masked figures? And the ship that almost shot us out of the sky? No two criminals could have orchestrated an attack of such magnitude by themselves. They must be part of an organization of some kind, something bigger than what we bargained for.”

“Do you know what that organization could be?” Marie asks, frowning. Azusa shakes her head.

“I don’t know,” she says, and Blair looks up from the tabletop.

“ _Whaaat?_ You  _don’t know?_ ”

“I don’t know.”

Silence falls in the hotel room for several beats, broken only by the drip of water from the tap. You press your lips together, a feeling of wrongness blooming in your chest. You don’t think you’ve ever heard those words fall from Azusa’s lips.

Azusa closes her eyes, and a moment later, the table flickers to life, holopics of the two criminals you’re hunting materializing above the center. “Giriko Gollum,” she reads. “Convicted of three counts of theft and ten counts of murder. Reward if captured: one hundred fifty thousand units. Known to be travelling with Mosquito.”

Gollum smirks obscenely at you from the hologram, all choppy brown hair and big teeth and piercings glittering on his face. You grimace in disgust, the nanos squirming on your skin. He was the one you captured and released on Yaochi.

“Grigore Vasil,” Azusa continues. “Commonly known as _Mosquito_. Wanted for embezzlement and transportation of illegal goods. Reward if captured: one hundred fifty thousand units. Known to be travelling with Giriko Gollum.”

The man blinking up at you from the hologram is handsome, in an old-fashioned sort of way. His dark hair is slicked back, features cold and composed, clad in a dark suit with a cravat around his neck. “A strange pair,” Marie says finally, and you nod in agreement.

“Well, if they try to come and kill us again, we’ll be ready,” Blair says defiantly, one fist thudding on the table for emphasis. “We won’t give up!”

Azusa looks Blair right in her eyes. “Perhaps we should. They may not be satisfied with merely chasing us off-“

“So what! If we expose the whole story we’ll probably get a hell of a lot more than three hundred thousand units! This is the biggest catch we’ve ever had! We’ll be set for _life!_ ”

“But at what cost? What if Tsukiko or Marie or myself were killed trying to capture them? But what does that matter; you’d still get your-“

Blair has gone very pale, her golden eyes wide with shock and a hint of anger. “We don’t have to decide this right now,” Marie interjects, her voice gentle but firm. “The _Spartoi_ ’srepairs will be completed in about a week. We can’t go anywhere till then, so we have plenty of time.”

“ _You let your greed blind you,”_ Azusa says harshly to Blair in Japanese before standing up and stalking away, leaving the three of you to sit in stunned silence.

* * *

 

_(shadow of a ghost)_

The music is so loud, slamming into your bones, vibrating in your chest, filling you up and leaving no room for anything else. You catch glimpses of Marie and Blair, illuminated in brief flashes by the strobe lights: one moment their bodies bent, eyes squeezed shut, the next their heads thrown back, mouths wide open, sweat glittering on their brows. The three of you are only three more in the sea of people surrounding you, and you laugh a little, breathless, exhilarated, because tonight you think you just might drown.

You don’t know how much later it is when a giggling Marie grabs your hand and drags you and Blair away from the dance floor, towards where Azusa sits, earplugs in her ears and little lights swimming in her eyes. The three of you collapse on the barstools beside her, catching your breath, becoming aware of the throbbing in your feet and the spinning of your heads. Wordlessly, Azusa hands you a pair of earplugs, and you put them in, grateful for the sudden quiet they bring.

“I’m tired!” Marie laughs, slumping on the smooth glass of the bar.

Blair cackles in reply. “Are you kidding? It’s only an hour after midnight! You’re getting _olllld,_ Ree-Ree!”

“Oh shut up! I’m only thirty-one!”

You smile, listening to their banter, muffled as it is through the earplugs. At some point Blair puts a drink or two in front of you and they vanish down your throat, leaving a pleasant tingling sensation on your tongue. Azusa doesn’t say much, but you can still feel the tension between her and Blair, very faint yet very there. Soon Blair and Marie leave for the dance floor again, leaving you alone with the dark-haired cyborg.

“ _Would they mind if I went home?_ ” you ask in Japanese.

“ _Yes, but go on if you like._ ”

“ _Do you want to join me?_ ”

“ _No. Those two children need someone to watch them._ ”

A smile tugs at the corners of your lips. “ _Good night, Azusa._ ”

She blinks, and the little lights in her eyes disappear as they meet yours. “ _Good night, Tsukiko. Be safe._ ”

“ _Yes._ ” You feel a sudden, bizarre urge to hug her, but rather than act on the impulse you turn around and walk out the door, shaking your head as if to clear it.

Outside, the night is warm, much warmer than the air-conditioned atmosphere within the club. The rainforest rings with the shouts and laughter of revelers, the cluttered nature of the trees hiding them from view. Through the gaps between the branches you can see the city proper, a collection of buildings silhouetted rectangular and glittering against the backdrop of the sky.

There is plenty of metal here on Mawu, so you can take to the air, becoming weightless with nothing more than a thought. You drift languidly upwards like a balloon, a peculiar sort of contentment brought on by exhaustion and just a touch of drunkenness stealing over you, making you want to smile for no reason at all. Above you, the three moons ooze liquid silver, silhouetting the floating islands drifting over and around the city like so many little satellites. The view from the sky is breathtaking, dizzying really, and you rotate in the air, momentarily dazzled and suddenly very lost.

“Azusa-san,” you murmur into the com, “which tower is our hotel in again?”

“Oh, Tsukiko…it’s the one built by Erebus Medicine.”

“And that is…?”

“Immediately behind the building to your left.”

You glide horizontally, peering around the tower, and see it, a kaleidoscope of multicolored lights, bright against the darkness of the jungle. “Oh, I see it. Thank yo-“

“Tsukiko, Azusa, get your asses over here right now, we’ve spotted Mosquito and- oh, shit, I think he saw me, he’s getting away, _hurry!”_ Blair’s voice abruptly cuts off.

Your eyes widen. As fast as you can, you streak to the earth, the wind from your fall clearing your head.

“Where are you?” Azusa snaps.

“We’re at the back of the building!” Marie cries. “God _damnit_ , there’s too many people! Tsukiko, can you catch him?”

“Yes,” you say, and rocket lower in the air, towards the large low form of the nightclub, its white walls glowing softly in the tropical night. But you’re too late; the form of a sleek black hover lifts into the air and pulls away just as you arrive. “He’s got a car!” you cry as you land, helpless to stop it as it rockets away above the trees, too fast and strong for your nanos.

“Well, so do we!”

“Absolutely not!” shouts Azusa harshly.

“Are you _fucking_ with me right now?!” Blair says in an uncharacteristic snarl. “We’ve spent _months_ chasing those bastards and they show up like right here?? This could be our big break! You’ve got to be joking!”

“I am not.”

“Then I’m not either! I’m going after them, with or without you, Azusa. Tsukiko, Marie, come on! No time to waste!” The link cuts off, just as Blair bursts through the back door in a wash of flashing lights and thudding music, Marie and Azusa close behind. She runs to the car, a white rental hover, and throws open the driver’s side door, sliding behind the wheel. You press your lips together, brow furrowed, but leap into the back seat at Blair’s insistent motion.

“I’m sorry, Azusa,” Marie says, hopping into the front seat. “Tsukiko and I are going with her.”

The hover hums to life, lifting a few centimeters into the air. “Come with us!” Marie calls. There’s a note of pleading in her voice. “We can’t do it without you!”

Azusa sighs, her hand across her face. “ _Someone_ needs to make sure the three of you get out of there alive,” she grumbles, and climbs in the back beside you.

Marie smiles and reaches back to squeeze her hand. “Thanks,” she says.

“This isn’t over,” Azusa snaps as the hover streaks into the night. “When we get back, we need to talk.”

“Oh, be quiet, Zusa. We can talk all you want once we’ve got a million units in our pocket.”

“Which way’d he go?” Marie asks, her voice hard.

“North,” you reply, gesturing.

“Azusa, can you find him?”

“What kind of hover picked him up?”

“Sleek, black, expensive-looking. Probably a Buttataki,” you say.

“Hmm…” Azusa’s eyes are tightly shut, her fingers on her temples. For a while, it’s silent as the robotic part of her brain connects to the internet, infiltrating the computers of the hovers in the area.

“You getting anything?”

“They’re not far,” the cyborg says, eyes flying open. “I was able to pick up the signature of a Buttataki a few kilometers northwest.”

“Aw _hell_ yeah,” Blair says, and you can hear the grin in her voice. “They’ll never know what hit ‘em.” You’re pushed back into your seat as the car accelerates to full throttle, the jungle below turning into a silvery blur.

“Please don’t crash,” Marie whimpers from the front seat.

“I’ve got it,” Azusa says tiredly, and her eyes slide shut. Blair takes her hands off the wheel. The car seems to steer itself, flying unerringly like an arrow in hot pursuit.

“We’re gaining,” Azusa’s voice says from the speakers. “Hold on. It looks like the target is going in for a landing. Please grab your respective weapons from the trunk when we join them.”

“Have I ever told you how much I love you, Zusa?”

“This is the fifty-third time since we met.”

Blair and Marie laugh. Your stomach drops as the car slants into a steep descent, only to pan out smoothly along the ground, pulling up beside the target’s now-empty hovercar in front of a large warehouse. The four of you leap out, Azusa slightly unsteady on her feet as she reorients herself in her flesh-and-blood form. You lend her a supporting arm, and she straightens, shaking her head briskly as she grabs a crossbow from the back.

“Did you put these in here?” Marie asks, and Azusa nods once.

“Ready?” Blair asks softly, already creeping towards the half-open door, the belts of explosives looped around her frame looking incongruous with her short, slinky party dress.

“Yes,” Marie whispers, her eye glittering, a plasma rifle in her hands and a pistol tucked in the sash tied around her waist. Azusa sighs. You nod once, the nanos flocking to your arms, turning them jet black.

Suddenly you become aware of how very quiet it is, out here in this remote corner of the city. The entrance to the warehouse is illuminated only by one harsh white light above the door; the surrounding area is completely deserted. There are no sounds of night creatures, no audible evidence of humans anywhere nearby, just the rustle of the breeze through the trees. You swallow. It feels like a cloud is hanging over this place, a miasma of malevolent expectation eagerly poised to swallow you whole.

“Maybe we should go in through the back,” you say softly.

Blair looks back at you, stopping. “Why?”

“Something doesn’t feel right.”

“Oh, Tsukiko, don’t be such a scaredy-cat! He just got here, after all. What could he do besides shoot?”

Azusa gives you a little push. “Up front. Form your nanoskin into a shield, so he can’t surprise us.”

“Yes,” you murmur, the nanos leaking from your hands, coalescing into a round orb much like the one you made on Yaochi. Silently, you creep forward, slipping through the half-open door, the others crowding in behind you.

Inside, it’s quiet, apparently deserted. Nothing moves. The hot, humid air is stagnant, thick, and hard to breathe, smelling vaguely of sawdust. It’s completely dark, save for a few pale lights illuminating crates of all sizes stacked on rows and rows of shelves, the angle of the bulbs making the boxes seem garish, almost monstrous. A bead of sweat trickles down the side of your neck. It’s eerie in here. Your sense of foreboding increases, but still, you continue walking forward, the others following. Even with your enhanced vision, it’s hard to see in the viscous, sticky blackness that coagulates in corners, in walkways, in the spaces between crates. You can only imagine how it must be for the others.

“HELLO!” Blair screams out suddenly, and you jump, the nanoshield rippling dangerously in response to your lapse in concentration. “COME OUT! WE KNOW YOU’RE IN HERE, AND WE’VE GOT GUNS!”

“ _What’d you do that for?!”_ Marie hisses.

“Well, if we can’t come to him, maybe he’ll come to us.”

“Smart,” Marie says sarcastically. “We should put you in charge more often.”

“Shut up.”

“Perhaps we should _split_ up,” Azusa suggests calmly. “That way we could find him much more quickly.”

“ _Noo!_ Don’t you watch the horror vids?”

“This is not a horror vid.”

“I agree with Azusa. Let’s split up. If one of you finds him, give the rest of us a call. Okay?”

“Yes,” you whisper, along with general noises of assent.

One by one, the other bounty hunters peel away, until it’s just you, all alone in the darkness. You take a deep breath of hot, stagnant air that does nothing to clear your head, a katana sprouting from your palm, your shield disappearing in favor of armor, on your legs, your back, your torso, your head. In this manner, you continue on, ears pricked, eyes wide, heart pounding in your throat.

Far away, you hear a _thud._

“What was that?” Marie whispers, her voice in your ear sounding almost frightened.

“Let’s find out,” says Azusa grimly.

You have to force your feet to move. Every cell in your body is screaming _go back go back go back,_ but you can’t just leave your friends here, all alone in this hellish darkness

_(like you did your father)_

It’s then that you see the light.

It catches your eye because it’s red, because it’s hanging all alone in murky darkness, because it’s _blinking_

“ _BOMB!”_ you scream, and

* * *

 

_(fire)_

they do not go quietly.

their shrieks fill your ears, high and grating, sounds of pure agony that no living creature should ever, ever have to make

_(sixty percent of a human being is water)_

their voices cut off so abruptly, one after the other, like echoes as the fire rips through them, turns them to steam and then nothing

_(why can you still hear them screaming)_

is this hell? it must be, because

_(if a star is blown to bits that’s a supernova isn’t it?)_

* * *

 

_(still)_

_(the hard black cocoon dissolves, melting back into your skin and)_

the stars wheel above you, little multicolored diamonds strewn across a piece of black velvet, glittering coldly, almost laughingly down at you, distant, unreachable. your mouth tastes like metal. ash falls softly from the sky, like snow, clinging to your prone figure

_(it’s happened again)_

the crater in your chest, it sizzles, burns,  _throbs_

_(you lost your family again)_

ash is on your lips. can they feel your kiss?


	8. tsubaki iv

_(homecoming)_

The bar is crowded, but that’s all right. The voices wash over you: rough and guttural, high and sweet, raucous laughter overriding low mutterings uttered in a strange tongue. In front of you, the needle sits, the liquid inside a greenish sort of blue, glittering darkly _(enticingly)_ up at you in the dim light.  Music plays, thudding loud in your ears. Girls dance on tables.Your head throbs, softly, dully. You’ve lost track of the days, because there’s no reason to worry about them any more anyway. They’ve sort of melded together in a dark, blurry murk, neon lights lurking in the periphery, shadowy figures of people and places melting and then briefly clarifying themselves only to dissolve into an incomprehensible, quivering mess, a mess which, when you sit dazed and starry-eyed, chemicals crawling through your veins and whispering in your ears, you find infinitely amusing.

The door opens, sending in a gust of hot air that makes your hair sway, the tips tickling the tops of your shoulders. You glance up. It’s a man. You can’t see his face, because your table is by the door and his back is to you now. Your eyes stick to him as he crosses the room, if only because of his hair. It’s wild, shaggy, and bright blue, sticking up in all directions, seemingly possessing a life of its own. He sits at a table where he can get a good look at a dancing girl with long dark hair.

The needle winks, made briefly brilliant in a flash from a party light and tearing your gaze away from the blue-haired stranger. You don’t know what’s in it, nor do you care. The one who gave it to you, a skinny, trembling creature with a stutter and dyed pink hair, only said that  _it’ll make you fly._

It’s enough.

Your hand reaches forward, closing around the slender syringe. The nanos waving softly on the back of it are sluggish, slow. You extend your other arm, baring the soft, bruised flesh in the crook of your elbow. You barely feel the pain as the needle pokes through your skin.

You’re about to push the plunger down when the man turns. Your eyes flick upward, and your enhanced vision can easily make out his face in the near-darkness.

_IMPOSSIBLE_

Your heart jolts, suddenly beating fast, a fluttering bird straining to fly from your ribcage. You rip the needle out of your arm. Blood wells from the entry point, a darkly shimmering bead that drips in a warm line down your skin, but you hardly notice. You’re on your feet. You’re threading through the crowd.

_IT CANNOT BE_

His back is turned to you again, but

_YOU’RE DEAD_

Your hand hovers above his shoulder. The corners of your mouth are turned down sharply. You can’t see him anymore, just a blurry shock of blue.

_what if it’s not_

_it’s been centuries_

Your hand lands, ever so lightly, on his skin.

He turns around. The tears overflow. You look into his eyes: green, like the sea.

“Black Star?” You choke on the words.

The man’s eyes widen.

“You cut your hair,” he says, and then

he’s in your arms

hugging you so tightly you can barely breathe

but that’s okay, because it means he’s _real_

“ _Tsubaki,_ ” he says, your name cracked and raw on his tongue, half shout, half sob.

 ~

 The horn of an air train blares in one unending, continuous note, muted with distance, only to cut off abruptly. You keep your eyes shut and simply let the noise filter through you: car horns and muffled voices and soft thuds and creaks and groans and the omnipresent hum underscoring all that, the voice of the city, the sound of its soul in motion.

You open your eyes.

The ceiling above is unfamiliar: old-fashioned plaster, cracked, yellowed. The sight brings tears to your eyes, because that means that last night wasn’t a dream, it wasn’t a hallucination of your drugged, drowned mind, it was real, _he_ was real.

Slowly, slowly, you turn your head, hair rasping softly on the pillow.

He’s sprawled chaotically across the bed, almost on top of you, head pillowed on your chest just beneath your collarbone, one arm thrown across your naked torso, snoring softly. His stubble tickles your skin. Light filtering yellow and watery from between the closed blinds makes brilliant stripes on his tanned, scarred back. No longer is he the skinny twig he was in your childhood. He’s stocky, muscled, and firm, movements purposeful, almost graceful, utterly devoid of awkward tentativeness.

_Oh, my dear one, how you’ve changed._

He thought you were dead, so he left to fight in the colonial army all those long years ago. When he woke up from stasis he served a year, lost his right arm, served a few more and was finally discharged because it was _too risky,_ apparently _._ His spine had been shattered in an attack and now his entire being was dependent on a small machine embedded in his back. It regulated his nervous impulses, kept him from becoming a vegetable. “If it breaks, I’m royally fucked,” he’d said calmly, but his eyes, the sudden tenseness of his body, told you just how much he despised it. And in return, you’d told him your story, all of it, the words coughed up in great bloody gobs that left you trembling, gasping for breath, the pain hitting you all over again because for centuries you tried to _forget,_ to stuff the memories away in the back of your mind where you didn’t have to face them ever again. You’d told him about Noah and the bounty hunters too, who they were, how they died. Afterwards you’d cried and held each other again, tightly, as if in confirmation that the other was real and alive and very much _there._

_(he’s still shorter than you, though, by just a few inches)_

You stayed on Mawu to drown, and so did he, but perhaps, you think as you run a hand through his soft, messy blue hair, you’ll stay afloat a little longer. 


	9. dylan and patti

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> dylan and patti's fanmix [ here ](http://8tracks.com/sleepmarshes/if-you-only-knew-the-plans-they-had-for-us)

_(dylan)_

“Dylan,” says your mother, and there’s the most peculiar look in her eyes as she kneels down to embrace you.

“Hello, Mom.”

She doesn’t reply, only holds you close, her grip warm and firm and somehow so _motherly_ you can’t help but respond, hugging her back just as fiercely and burying your head in the sweet-smelling crook of her neck. A moment later you feel your feet leave the ground as she lifts you and walks to the living room, her heels clicking on the black marble of the apartment’s floor.

“Hey Mom,” you say from her lap once everyone’s been situated, “who’s that lady?”

The lady in question smiles and waves. “I’m your Aunt Maddie,” she says. “It’s good to meet you.”

“Likewise,” you reply, eliciting a warm chuckle from your aunt.

“That man’s taking good care of you, Dylan?” Mom asks, hands running across the top of your head.

“Yes,” you say. “Mr. Calibur is a great cook.” You reach up and tuck a strand of hair that’s come loose from your mother’s bun behind her ear, to match the other one, and beam at the sudden symmetry of her face. She smiles back, lips curving upward, but somehow her expression is almost _melancholy,_ which doesn’t make sense, as smiles are supposed to be expressions of happiness. “Why are you sad, Mom?” you ask her, and her eyes widen, surprised.

“Why would I be sad?”

“I don’t know. But it’s not good for you to be sad. Let’s play a game of chess; that’ll cheer you up!” Excitedly, you leap from her lap and towards the coffee table in the middle of the living room. With a few swipes you’ve pulled up the chess mod. The pieces materialize about the smooth surface, a perfect array of little holograms. You look up at her, grinning eagerly.

“You’re very lucky, Arianne,” says Aunt Maddie lightly. “He’s quite smart for his age.”

“Yes,” replies your mother softly, settling down cross-legged on a cushion across from you. You’re the white, so you go first.

“Mom, where’s Dad? How come he didn’t come too?”

“Your father is very busy, Dylan,” she replies, tapping the square directly in front of a pawn. “He couldn’t make it, I’m afraid.”

“Oh,” you say, crestfallen. “But Dad said that he really wanted to see me. He’s the boss of his company, right? Couldn’t he leave for an hour or so?”

“I’m afraid not,” your aunt says with a shrug.

“Why?” you ask, frowning.

“We have a deal, your parents and me,” is all she says, and something in the overly saccharine way the words drip from her mouth makes you turn back to the board, feeling that it would be unwise to question further.

“So how’s school? What have you been up to?” Mom asks you, her voice a little too bright.

You shrug. “I’m not sure _school_ is the right word, but the tutor bot is teaching me trigonometry. I’m also going to be seven in a week. Mr. Calibur says I can’t have a party.” Suddenly hopeful, you look up at your mother. “ _Can_ I have a party?”

She laughs. “Mr. Calibur’s word is law, unfortunately, so I’m afraid not. I _will_ make sure to get you a present, though.”

“Oh, yes,” Aunt Maddie purrs. “We all will.”

Mom gives her a swift, piercing glance. “I’m sure,” she replies, her voice clipped.

“Check,” you say.

Your mother raises her eyebrows. “My! When did you get so good at chess?”

“Mr. Calibur and I play a lot of games,” you say smugly.

She frowns, eyes narrowing in concentration. “Mmm…I sense a trap, so…check, right back at you.”

You stick out your tongue. “No fair.”

“All’s fair in love and war,” chirps your aunt.

Your mother’s jaw stiffens. “Not now, Madeline.”

You eye the two women, puzzled. What’s going on? But glancing at the board, you see an opportunity, and with a small smile take out her knight with your bishop.

“Checkmate,” you say, and then sit back, arms crossed over your chest.

Mom squints at the board. “I do believe it is,” she says finally.

“Well,” says Aunt Maddie, standing up, little numbers flashing briefly in her eyes. “It’s time to go. It was lovely meeting you, Dylan. I’m sure your mother feels much the same.” She opens her arms for a hug. You oblige her, closing your arms quickly, briefly about her middle before stepping away.

“Dylan,” says Mom, and the hug you give her is much more heartfelt.

“Can’t you stay a little longer?” you ask, looking up at her pleadingly.

Mom smiles and shakes her head. “I wish. But I’ve got to go back to work.” She leans down and plants a quick kiss on your forehead before following your aunt out the door.

You are almost seven years old. Today was the first time you met your mother in the flesh, rather than speaking to her in a hologram. You sigh and, after a few moments, call for your tutor bot to come and resume the lesson.

* * *

 

_(patti)_

“Hands up, cash out,” says Sis in a sing-song voice, pointing the pistol almost lazily at the man. After a beat, he complies, sighing resignedly.

“I wouldn’t do this if I were you, girls,” he says, as you saunter forward, snagging the wadded paper from his hands.

“Too baaaad,” you chirp, smiling as you jab him in the ribs with your gun. The man only sighs.

“You’ll be sorry,” he says, a smirk playing at the corner of his lips.

“Shut your goddamn mouth,” your sister snaps, pushing the barrel of her weapon against his neck. “It’s _us_ who got the guns, not you, asshat.”

You giggle, twirling your gun around your fingers. “Bang, bang!”

“I’m not someone to be trifled with...the cops _will_ be notified of this.”

You don’t bother to contain your guffaw at his threat. Sis smiles, a thin stream of smoke issuing from her parted lips. “Look around. You’re in the bad part of town, buddy,” she says, plucking out the cigarette from between her teeth. “Cops don’t care about the stuck-up little gutter rat who got his paycheck jacked. Now _shoo_ , if ya know what’s good for ya…”

“Mmm,” he hums silkily, hand drifting towards the breast pocket of his coat. “I don’t think so.”

Suddenly, you know what’s going to happen. As the man pulls the gun from his pocket, you lift your own and pull the trigger in one fluid motion. The man’s head jerks back, blood flying from the hole in his skull to splatter against the grimy walls of the alley as he crumples to the ground.

“Aw, Patti,” says Lizzie. “Now my new shirt’s dirty.”

“You can have mine!” you reply cheerfully. Your sister shakes her head.

“No, keep it. I have a spare.” She kneels down and begins pawing through the dead man’s clothes. “Knew it,” she mutters, pulling out a fat wad of cash from an inside pocket of his coat, along with a knife, a wallet, and a few other odds and ends. She tosses you the cash. “I could have handled him, you know.”

“Not without getting hurt.”

Sis sighs. “I just don’t like you killing people.”

“But you do it all the time!”

“That’s because I’m older. I’m supposed to take care of you.”

“We take care of each other.”

Your sister gives you a long look. “Sure, Pat,” she says finally, and her hand reaches down, fingers lacing with yours. “We do.”

-o-

 They come at night, when the two of you are curled together on the nest of rags that serves as your bed, shattering the relative quiet of the night with their loud voices and bright lights and grabbing hands, yanking you roughly out of sleep. Your sister shrieks and struggles and so do you, but your twiggy, undernourished body is no match for that of a hardened police officer’s, and you’re forced to watch as they wrestle your sister into electrocuffs that shock her every time she tries to break free. “Sis!” you shriek. “Sis!”

 "Patti!” she cries, and that’s the last time you hear her voice for a while.

* * *

 

  _(dylan)_

You decide to hack Erebus Medical, your father’s company, because you are sick and tired of being kept in the dark.

Since you can remember, your parents were only ever holograms that you got to talk to for one hour every day, and never both at once. Then, when you were seven, your mother visited, and then one month later, your father, and so it’s been for the past six years, always in the company of either Aunt Madeline or Aunt Shaula for some inexplicable reason. At first, you took it as normal, that that was the way that all families worked. But then, as you became more and more embroiled in the online world of the terminal, you’d found that it wasn’t the case, that people’s parents usually came home to sleep at the very least, no matter how busy their job was. In fact, if you didn’t know better, you would almost think that the three of you were _criminals,_ but the very notion was so preposterous that you dismissed it at once. Or, at least, the idea of your parents being criminals. You’re not sure if the kind of hacking you do is illegal; after all, you’re not releasing any bugs in the systems you compromise, instead seeking merely to challenge yourself. But if you asked your parents or aunts, all you’d get was a vague “Lots of work to do!” and suddenly the conversation would be steered to safer topics.

“What are you doing?”

You don’t turn around, keeping your fingers steady on the terminal’s control desk and repressing the urge to twitch at the sound of your caretaker’s voice behind you, entirely unexpected. “Go away, Mr. Calibur, I’m busy,” you say, keeping your tone carefully flat.

Your caretaker marches up and peers over your shoulder. “What was that you just exited out of?”

“Research for my assignment.”

“So then why did you close it as soon as you heard my voice? Pull up your history, young man.”

You grit your teeth and do as he asks. For a few moments, Mr. Calibur stares at your recent webpages, mouth agape, and then his pasty face quickly turns to an astonishingly rich shade of puce. “Are you trying to _hack your father’s company?!”_

“Yes,” you say, keeping your tone carefully even.

“You fool! Stop this right now or I’ll-“

“What? Tell my father?”

“ _Fool!_ ” screeches your caretaker, brandishing his cane. “I will pull you from that terminal myself if you don’t stop right this instant!”

You give Mr. Calibur a dirty look, wondering at his overblown reaction. “For _thirteen years-“_

“-you’ve had a wonderful life! Why should you _possibly_ care why things are the way they are! They just _are!_ That’s how most families these days operate anyway!”

“No, it isn’t! I saw on the terminal-“

“Then no more terminal!”

You look at your caretaker, incredulous. Mr. Calibur’s watery blue eyes drill into yours unflinchingly. “No more terminal,” he repeats.

“ _Bullshit-“_

“ _Don’t you swear at me-“_

“I wasn’t going to _damage_ anything-“

“ _Fool!_ You don’t know the-“

“Why the h…the _fuck_ else-“

“ _That’s it, young man, no more-“_

 _“WHAT, exactly?!_ The terminal is the _only-_ “

“ _FOOL!”_ bellows Mr. Calibur, his voice reverberating through the apartment. Your mouth snaps shut, but you’re breathing heavily. “No more terminal,” he says, his eyes locked onto yours. “It’ll _blow up_ in your face, kid,” he says. “Now go to your room or so help me…”

“Are you threatening me, Mr. Calibur?”

“Yes,” he replies, and he opens his mouth like he wants to add more but then snaps it shut. “Go to your room,” he says gruffly. “Go. Just go,” and something in the set of his face, not possessed of its usual fire but suddenly rather _exhausted,_ something it’s never, ever been before, sends you on your way without complaint.

-.-

It’s on quiet socked feet that you emerge from your room, the screen holding your notes under one arm, and tiptoe to the living room, where the terminal crouches against a back wall. You can hear Mr. Calibur’s snores, safely loud, in the room across the hall from yours, and smile to yourself. Your caretaker’s in on whatever secret it is your relatives are keeping from you, apparently, and that’s why he got so angry when he found out what you were up to. But it’s one thirty in the morning, and he’s asleep. You have plenty of time.

Computers have always been your one great love in life. Their precision, their unscrupulous, inexorable calculations, their beauty, their efficiency all appeal to some deep part of you. From an early age you were drawn to them, messing around on the terminals, learning their language, the way they worked. Even so, your father’s internet security poses a challenge. You’d been chipping away at it for days, though, and finally, at six-oh-four in the morning, you gain access to his databases. You have to repress the urge to shout with triumph.

But what do you look for? You press your lips together, and settle on your mother, because she’s the best lead you have. You know that she works for your father, that she has for a long time. With shaking fingers, you type her name: _Arianne Mortimer._

“Clearance Level 10 Required” flashes briefly across the hologram, followed by “Access Granted.” With bated breath, you watch as your mother’s picture loads. She smiles her Mona Lisa smile at the camera, clad in a white lab coat and glasses, her dark hair done up in its usual no-nonsense bun. Beneath it is some basic information: her height, weight, age, birthdate, and…

“ _Icy,”_ you whisper, because there on the bottom row are the things you’ve always wanted to know: _Projects._ The list is short: _Spider (C), DWeap-42 (C), Bandage (C), 83657 (T), REVIGOR (IP)_

Frowning, you click “REVIGOR”, as it is the most recent one. Almost immediately, the data begins to load, window after window of charts and graphs, reports and signatures, and at first you’re completely bewilderedby the sheer amount of information, eyes rapidly scanning the documents before they’re eclipsed by new ones. You catch snippets:

“…formula 36 unsuccessful…”

“…subject exhibits signs of rapid mental degeneration…”

“…blood unable to clot…”

“…to achieve a living stasis…”

“…sudden cardiac arrest…”

And then the images begin to appear, little windows into the experiments conducted under the project. Your eyes widen, and you have to cover your mouth to keep from gagging.

a woman, clad in a thin white shift, her skin splotchy and bruised, bloody tears leaking from her eyes

a man whose heart monitor is still, but opens his eyes when a bot walks in

a robot with a human brain in its see-through skull

a child hitting its head over and over against the wall, smearing it with blood

a body twisted and disfigured by monstrous tumors

a woman whose skin appears to _ripple_ as she descends into what looks to be an epileptic fit

and other, worse horrors. You’re pressed into your chair, paralyzed by the atrocities committed in the depths of Erebus Medical, unable to believe that _this_ is what your mother and her sisters do, that _this_ is something your father condones. At some point you find that your eyes have slid shut and you’ve curled into a ball. “Halt data flood; show synopsis,” you choke out, suddenly finding your voice, and after a count of exactly eight seconds you dare to open one eye.

There is only a block of text, hovering quietly, innocuously above the terminal. You pull your chair back towards the control desk and realize that you are shaking.

CLASSIFICATION LEVEL 10

REVIGOR

HEAD OF OPERATIONS: Arianne Mortimer

OBJECTIVE: Halt natural physical degeneration in order to prolong the human life span

STATUS: In Progress (IP)

REPORT INDEX

You release a breath that you didn’t realize you were holding and throw up, just as Mr. Calibur emerges from his room, blinking blearily. He stops in his tracks, eyes going wide as he takes in the scene.

That’s when the terminal abruptly shuts down.

 -.-

“I’m impressed,” says Aunt Madeline, her voice warm like honey. “We didn’t expect you to make it _that_ far in.”

You don’t respond, instead looking at a point somewhere above her head. The two of you are sitting across from each other in your living room, the coffee table stretching between you. Mr. Calibur is nowhere to be found.

“You’ve found out some information of a rather…sensitive nature. We can’t have word of it spreading, you understand.”

“Are you threatening me, Auntie?” you ask, your eyes darting to hers.

She smiles pleasantly. “Yes, I am.”

You snort.

Her smile widens in response. From the pocket of her coat, she pulls a remote. “Do you know what this is?”

You don’t answer, just stare at her flatly, letting your annoyance show.

“I wouldn’t look so exasperated if I were you,” she says cheerfully. “You see, with a push of this button, a small device embedded at the base of your skull will send an electric shock down your spine and overload every nerve ending in your body. You will feel the most _awful_ pain before you die. Like your entire body is set aflame.”

Involuntarily, you twitch. One hand feels the back of your neck, probes the topmost bones of your spine. After a few moments, you feel it: a small lump where there shouldn’t be, something you’d always taken for a natural, harmless mutation of your spinal column. You look at her, incredulous, heart suddenly beating at twice its normal rate. “When did you-“

“When you were a toddler,” Aunt Madeline laughs. “We gave both your parents one, too. If they didn’t cooperate with us…” She lets the sentence trail off, one manicured finger stroking the remote. You fight the urge to gag.

 “So that means…that means…I could have _died?!_ ”

“Oh, yes,” says your aunt, and you hate the wide, gloating smile on her face. “Now, we’d like to ask you for a favor, Dylan.”

You can only nod, numbly. It’s not like you have any other choice.

“You’ve demonstrated admirable skills when it comes to computer security. So we’d like you to… _use_ them for our mutual benefit.”

“Of course,” you reply.

“Excellent,” says Aunt Madeline. “It’s been a pleasure doing business with you, Mr. Mortimer.” And with a kiss to your cheek, she walks out of the apartment, golden hair glittering.

* * *

 

_(patti)_

_A NEW WAY TO STAY YOU!_

_We at EREBUSMED are seeking volunteers to participate in a CONFIDENTIAL RESEARCH STUDY that examines the effects of REVIGOR on the human body. REVIGOR is an experimental drug designed to keep you younger, longer!_

_To become one of the first to obtain the quantum driver of the cosmetics industry, you must:_

  * _be between the ages of 15 and 55_
  * _be mentally stable_
  * _have no dependence on alcohol, hallucinogens, or other such substances_



_Testing involves injections via hypodermic needle and minimally invasive surgical procedures. A sum of 80,000 units will be paid to eligible volunteers upon signing, with up to 2 million units in compensation._

_PLEASE PING: revigorstudy:erebusmedical:corp_

_CALL: “Revigor Study Erebus”_

“What’cha reading?”

You twitch, startled by your sister’s sudden movement beside you. “Ah, nothing,” you say. “Just some ad.”

“What’s it say?” Sis yawns, slumping back on the bench, her eyes sliding closed again.

“A research study,” you say. “For some drug that makes you stay young. If you volunteer you’ll get eighty thousand units.”

Sis blows a raspberry. “S’not worth it,” she sighs, eyes still shut. “They’ll mess your body all up.”

“Yeah,” you say, but the thought of eighty thousand units isn’t easily banished, even though the grimy screen has long since switched to another product.

The hoverbus comes some time later, and you wake up your sister and lead her up the steps and into a seat. “You should take a break, Lizzie. The cops aren’t gonna get on you if you miss a day.”

She snorts. “There is no way in _hell,_ ” she says, fixing you with a bloodshot blue eye, “that I’m going back to jail, because then you’ll be a government ward again and we both know how well _that_ turned out.”

“Yeah.”

Outside, the city flashes by, the skyscrapers a towering myriad of golden flecks against the blackness of the night. On Eibon-7, that’s all there is, concrete and metal and glass, a great vast metropolis covering the whole planet. And your sister is falling apart trying to keep you and complete a sentence that should have been yours, no matter what she tells you to the contrary. “I’m sorry, Sis,” you say softly, biting your lip, not looking at her. A moment later, you feel her hand, rough and callused from years of labor, work its way into your own.

“Nah, don’t be. Don’t be,” she repeats, soothingly, and it’s so stupid that you’re suddenly crying right now, here on this stupid bus that smells like stale food and feet and giving up because your sister already has enough to deal with without you adding to her burden. “You couldn’t have known that that shitstain was some undercover government goon. I don’t blame you,” she murmurs into your hair, and you sniffle and clutch her tightly and nod.

Lizzie took all the blame for the incident, saying that she told you to shoot him, that you didn’t know, that you were just a little kid. She was given twenty years’ hard labor  in a factory instead of jailtime because she was so young, only fourteen. At first she was little more than an indentured servant, but since you came to live with her again she’s been given a small stipend, just enough for two people to live off of. Your sister doesn’t blame you and tells you so on multiple occasions, but all the forgiveness in the world can’t erase the fact that her exhausion and fragile feelings are _all your goddamn fault._

-o-

You get the call in the morning, during school. The blackboard is in the middle of demonstrating one of the myriad ways to solve a quadratic equation when the office lady pokes her head in the classroom, her face unusually pale.

“Patricia Thompson?” she asks. The blackboard pauses midsentence. Heads swivel towards you. You lift your chin and raise your hand.

“I need you to come with me,” she says. “Please bring your things.”

Puzzled, you do as you are told, powering off your screen and threading your way towards the door.

The office lady leads you a little ways down the hall, not looking at you.

“Am I in trouble?”

“Not exactly,” says the office lady, and when she turns around her expression is unusually grave.

“What’s wrong, Miss?” you ask, brows furrowed in bewilderment. “Is everything okay?”

“There was an accident at the factory,” she says, and then swallows. “Where your sister works. One of the machines failed.”

You go utterly still.

“I received a call telling me that Miss Elizabeth Thompson was among those critically injured in the explosion. She’s currently in intensive care in Erebus Hospital 15, but…”

You’re already sprinting down the hall.

-o-

“Let me see her!”

The nurse puts both hands on your shoulders and pushes you gently but firmly away from the door and into a chair. “Miss, I’m going to need you to-“

“ _Let me in, damn you!”_ You take a swing at her, but the nurse dodges your fist.

“Miss, I don’t want to have to stick you with this, but I will if necessary!” From a pocket she pulls out a syringe, the clear liquid inside glittering dangerously. At the sight of it, you stop resisting, and instead slump into the chair, burying your head in your hands.

The hospital waiting room is all dark, muted colors, probably meant to be calming but instead more closely resembling a funeral parlor, currently crowded with the families of those injured in the accident. It’s a hive of activity: nurses call to one another and mothers wail and siblings pace and mutter and sometimes shout, but none of it reaches you, because all you can think of is _Sis Sis Sis_ , all you can think of is her voice and her rough callused hands and the way she used to sing you to sleep when you were children and had no home but each other.

“I know, I know,” says the nurse softly, her hand making soothing circles on your back, and suddenly you realize that you’re crying, big fat tears slipping from your eyes to your hands and run hot and wet down your arms, and your mouth is turned down sharply and you’re breathing in great ragged gasps because _what can you do?_ Nothing, nothing, nothing at all, just sit in the funeral parlor and wait and hope and wish.

“I just want my big sis to be _okay,”_ you sob.

“We all do,” the nurse replies, and at that you look up at her, silencing your tears with a great effort of will because suddenly you realize that if it was _you_ in there, Sis wouldn’t be breaking down like this; Sis would be trying her damndest to get to you and figure out how to make things right.

“Please let me see her,” you say to the nurse, looking right into her eyes. They’re blue, framed by red glasses and strands of dark hair. For a long moment, she holds your gaze, and then looks away, sighing deeply.

“I’m too soft,” she murmurs, half to herself, and with a soft popping of bones she straightens from her crouch and pulls out a datascreen. “Who’s your sister?”

“L…Elizabeth Thompson.”

“Thompson…Thompson…ah, that’ll be in room 1014. Come on, then.”

She leads you through the door and into a long, white hallway crowded with harried-looking doctors and nurses running every which way. In the commotion, your presence goes unnoticed. The nurse turns left and right and then left again, burrowing ever deeper into the twisting rabbit’s warren of the emergency ward. Through some of the doors you can hear moans and even screams and shouts, and you can’t help but shudder, wondering what exactly you’ll find in the room where your sister is being kept.

“Here we are,” says your guide, jolting you from your thoughts. The door she’s brought you to is much like the others: plain wood, windowless. You push your way through, and almost burst into tears again at the sight of the person on the bed.

Both her legs are missing. That’s the first thing you notice. One ends at the knee and the other at midthigh. It’s curiously incongruous, almost comical, really. You fight a sudden, insane desire to laugh. Her beautiful long blonde hair, the hair that she carefully washed and combed and tied into a ponytail each and every day is gone, and what little remains is chopped brutally short. One of her arms is in a cast and the other is vanished, empty white blankets in the space where it should be. A patch is over one eye. The pieces of skin not covered by bandages are an angry red, twisted and melted-looking. A machine breathes for her. Another monitors her heartbeat.

“Hi, Sis,” you mumble, and grip the part of her remaining arm where her hand should be.

“She won’t last much longer,” the nurse says from behind you, and you whirl, eyes narrowed.

“ _Don’t say that!”_ you all but shriek. The nurse takes a step back, raising her arms in an attempt to placate you.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I’m just-“

“You can save her, right? There’s _gotta_ be a way, right? You can put Lizzie back together?”

“Well, erm, _yes,_ actually-“

“ _How?!”_

“C-cybernetic body parts,” the nurse stutters. “But they’re…the cost is _astronomical;_ no one can afford them-“

“I CAN!” you blurt fiercely, gripping her shoulders. The nurse looks up at you, frightened, her glasses askew. “I can,” you repeat, but the tears are coming back because you _can’t,_ there’s no way, you and your sister barely have enough to pay for meals, much less impossibly expensive cybernetic body parts

_body parts_

and then your eyes widen as an idea occurs to you, beautiful and shining, a brilliant moment of clarity. “I _CAN!”_ you cry, and without waiting for a response you sprint out of the room, running as fast as you can to the nearest public terminal.

-o-

_TO: revigorstudy:erebusmedical:corp_

_FR: patriciathompson:scythenet:prsnl_

_RE: revigor research study_

_Hello, my name is Patricia Jane Thompson. I am interested in participating in your CONFIDENTIAL RESEARCH STUDY. I am sixteen years old. Attached are all the forms you said wannabe participants had to fill out. About the payment, I have one little request: please forward all units towards the paying of my big sis’s hospital bill. You’ll find her listed under “Elizabeth Marie Thompson” in Erebus Hospital 15. Thanks a bunch!!!!_

* * *

 

_(dylan)_

It’s strange, seeing your father in so casual a setting, dressed comfortably in a t-shirt and jeans, his light brown hair artfully tousled. He could be anyone but the high-powered CEO of Erebus Medicine that he actually is. He smiles at you, and it’s free of tension, an easy, genuine thing. You grin back, relaxing into the metal of the chair.

The two of you are out for lunch at a small café built into the side of a skyscraper, composed of a terrace jutting out from the main body of the building. Plants cover the veranda: shrubs burst fluffy and round from pots, towering trees cast everything in cool green dimness, and honeysuckle vines and assorted kinds of ivy drip from the edge to sway comfortably in empty space below. Live grass replaces carpet for the floor. The kitchen, despite being tucked within the building proper, is open to the air, and so the smell of food drifts enticingly through the miniature forest, causing your mouth to water.

“It’s amazing, isn’t it,” Father says, golden eyes twinkling like twin suns. “I thought you might like it.”

You nod, gazing wide-eyed around you. “It’s lovely. What’s the name of this place? I haven’t even tried the food and I want to come back.”

“The _Café de Verdoyant,”_ he says. “It’s French. Means _Verdant Cafe.”_

“Interesting,” you say, as a waiter arrives to take your orders, a flower crown perched atop his head.

“So how’s work?” your father asks once he leaves.

“I could ask you the same thing.”

“Oh, same old, same old,” your father says, waving a hand in the air. “I’m the puppet of your lovely aunts and there’s nothing I can do about it.” He grits his teeth. “Nasty pieces of work, those women.”

You grimace, hand drifting up to rub the back of your neck and the small machine hidden there beneath your skin. “I agree.”

“My office is bugged, you know. It’s a right pain in the ass, especially because I have a tendency to mutter to myself, apparently. I don’t like spending time there, but I have to; else they’ll get suspicious...perhaps _rightly so,_ ” he says, in clear mockery of your Aunt Madeline’s honey-sweet voice. You choke on your water, half-amused at his manner, half-terrified because of it.

“Shh!” you hiss when you recover, although the smile on your face somewhat minimizes the severity of the reprimand. “There could be cameras!”

“Hell if I care,” says your father, glaring up at a knothole in one of the trees.

You sigh. “That kind of attitude will get yourself or Mother or me killed. I’d appreciate it if you were more careful.”

Your father grins wryly. “You know I’m only joking, kiddo. It’s either that or completely lose my mind.”

“I suppose that’s one way to cope.”

“Yep.” Casually, he slides a paper to you across the table, and you take it, giving him a brief, searching glance. Your father’s eyes meet yours, calculating, glittering. “But enough of that delightful subject,” he says. “Let’s talk about you! What’s going on? Any new stories about the snobby legal department?”

“What is it with you and those people? They’re insignificant paperwork managers who think that they’re almost as important as the board of directors. There’s nothing to tell.”

“Mmm, that’s a shame. Their stupidity is hilarious. Are you sure you don’t have any?”

“Well…Jacqueline Dupre went off on some poor human resources drone for daring to swipe the last donut on the entire floor…”

Your father laughs, and after a few moments you smile. When your father laughs, he laughs with his whole body. Just watching him makes you want to join in.

“So how’s work?” he asks finally. “You’re the…tech repairman, right?”

“My official title is network security expert, but yes, my duties do extend to servicing hardware and such during the day. And then, of course, the...side jobs I do for my lovely aunts.”

“Sounds like fun.”

“Infuriating, mostly. You wouldn’t believe the amount of people that do not understand the basics of terminal operation. You should have a mandatory technology training seminar next week before my brain blows a circuit.”

Father snorts. “Like the snakes would let me.”

“Damn…that’s too bad.”

The food comes just then: a sandwich for you and a stew for your father.

“Why aren’t you eating?”

“It’s so beautiful,” you say reverently, eyeing its perfect symmetry. “Almost art.”

“I thought you were taking medication?”

“I am,” you say, and pick it up, taking a large bite. Warmth fills your mouth: the smoky flavor of cooked turkey, the sharpness of melted cheese, the crisp freshness of lettuce, the coolness of onion and tomato, the sour bite of pickles and the moist mildness of mayonnaise all combining in perfect, beautiful, harmonious balance to create a symphony of flavor in your mouth. You chew slowly, eyes sliding shut, savoring every bite.

“Enjoying yourself there?”

“Mmm,” you hum, unwilling to disentangle yourself enough from the food to form proper words. Your father chuckles, and for a time it is silent but for the breeze rattling the leaves and the conversations of other patrons drifting softly between the tree trunks.

“Definitely coming back,” you say, once the entirety of the glorious sandwich is in your stomach.

Your father smiles. “Glad to hear it. This place is one of my favorites. Maybe we can do this again sometime?”

“Sure,” you say.

Your father holds out a fist. “Pound it.”

“Father, no.”

“Isn’t that what you kids do these days?”

You sigh. “That’s an ancient gesture of Terran origin used to express friendship among peers.”

“Well, aren’t we friends?”

“I suppose.”

“Then come on!”

“I don’t know how you got to be CEO,” you say grumpily, bumping his fist with your own.

“Murder,” says Father cheerfully. You’re pretty sure he isn’t joking.

 -.-

You sit at the _Café de Verdoyant,_ alone, a newspaper pulled up on your screen and a coffee in front of you. Eventually you have to put your screen down because your hands are shaking too badly to be able to read the small print of the article. You already know what it says, anyway, because the gist of it is smeared big and thick and loud across the top in the form of a headline.

You put your head in your hands.

Your father was electrocuted to death in a freak accident at five fifty in the afternoon, one week after the two of you had lunch here last. Apparently he died while tinkering with his malfunctioning terminal. It’s a feeble excuse at best, but the public seems to buy it wholeheartedly. You know the real reason, though: he and your mother were plotting to murder your aunts, to break their control for good. It’s what was written on the paper he gave you along with instructions to “sit back and watch the show unfold.”

Well, a show did unfold, although perhaps not the one your father had in mind. Abruptly, you laugh once, a brief, mad thing that somehow dissolves into a sob. You crumple the rest of the way down to the table, jaw clenched tightly. Your erratic, loving, flamboyant father, who had a sharper mind than he let on. How were he and Mother caught? How did your aunts find out? You twitch as a thought occurs to you: what if the device in the back of your neck lets them see through your eyes? But that’s preposterous; your parents have one too and Madeline and Shaula only just found out…right? Thinking about it, the timing of his death was a little too coincidental to have been a sudden act of savage discipline. Shivers run icy fingers down your spine. How much do they know, really? What else have they put in your body without your knowledge?

“Sir? Would you like to order?”

The waiter’s voice jolts you from your thoughts. “No,” you say without lifting your head.

After a few moments, you feel a hand on your shoulder. You jerk away from the touch, mouth open in a snarl as you prepare to give the man the most vicious verbal thrashing he’s ever received in his life, when your eyes meet his. A flash of recognition jolts through you, stilling your tongue. You know those eyes: a pale, watery blue. “ _Mr. Calibur?_ ” you gasp. Your old caretaker smiles sadly.

“Hey, Dylan. It’s been a while.”

Flustered, you wipe your eyes. “Yes, it has,” you say. After a brief, awkward pause, you blurt, “I thought you were dead.”

“Oh, but I am,” Mr. Calibur says, and his hand rubs the back of his neck.

“They gave you one, too?”

“Fool. Don’t sound so amazed. I knew too much. It’s only a matter of time, really.”

“Oh,” you say, because you don’t know what else to tell him.

He huffs dismissively. “It’s fine. I’ve lived a long, fulfilling life. Centuries and centuries spent sleeping among the stars. I doubt death will be much different. But before I go…”

“What?”

“Your mother wants you to meet her in her laboratory, at three eleven in the morning. Room 1001, in the basement of the Erebus skyscraper, level 10.  The two of you are leaving; don’t ask me for details, but she’s got something worked out. Here’s a keycard,” he says, slipping you a rectangle of cool plastic. “It’s old-fashioned, I know, but it should get you through with no trouble. There’s a door on the northern wall of the building that leads directly to the labs, so use that instead of the lobby, what with all the security cameras there.”

You look up at Mr. Calibur. Gold meets blue. “Thank you,” you tell him.

“Fool,” he says. “I’m not doing it for you.” He stands up. “Well, take care, Dylan. Try not to die. You’ve got a lot of life in you yet.” With that, he turns and walks into the shadows.

“Mr. Calibur, wait,” you say suddenly, getting to your feet. The old man turns, one eyebrow raised inquiringly. “I don’t think I’ve ever asked your name.”

He laughs. “Took you long enough. I am Edgar Xenophilius Calibur. My parents had a funny sense of humor.”

“How so?”

“Fool! My name is E.X. Calibur! Excalibur! Like the legendary sword of King Arthur! Please tell me you’ve heard of King Arthur of Earth!”

“Of course.”

“Good.” He eyes you beadily. “At least you took in _some_ of the valuable knowledge I attempted to impart. Goodness knows you need it.” And with that, he vanishes into the trees.

You know he won’t come back.

-.-

You alarm wakes you, and for a moment your mind is blissfully ignorant of the events that transpired the previous day as your hand slams down on the snooze button. But then your eyes snap open and you throw off your blankets with a gasp, turning off your alarm and setting about getting dressed in your usual impeccable attire: a white button-down shirt and black pants, dark hair combed to silky perfection, a miniscule dab of cologne in all the right places. Just because it is three o’clock in the morning does not mean that you can leave your apartment looking like a bum. Plus you are about to do something that, if discovered, could mean death for you or your mother, and so you take extra care with your wardrobe choices. It’s winter here on this part of Eibon-7, so you don a large black trench coat over everything. You’ve already packed a bag, and you grab it on your way out the door. You lock your apartment, even though you’re not coming back.

The streets are dotted with figures hurrying to and fro, and the multicolored skyscrapers tower over all, slender structures with metal bones and bodies made of concrete and glass, testaments to the power of human engineering. Above, hovercars whiz among the buildings. _The city never sleeps,_ you think wryly, and you quicken the pace of your steps.

Your apartment building is close to the Erebus skyscraper, so it takes no time at all to arrive. The door is exactly where Mr. Calibur said it would be, embedded in the northern wall. You slide your keycard in, breath billowing thick and white from between your lips. After a moment, the light turns green, and with a sigh of relief you slip inside, closing the door behind you.

The hall you find yourself in is long, concrete, and dirty, lit from above by harsh fluorescent lights and almost as cold as it is outside. You hunch your shoulders and put your hands in your pockets, striding purposefully down the corridor. You’ve never been down here before, and you grit your teeth, on edge at the unfamiliar surroundings. You pass a few doors, cold, metal things, tightly locked with old-fashioned keypads. You don’t attempt to open them. Eventually, you come across an elevator and push the only button present: down.

After a few moments, it appears, clanking and wheezing. Uneasily, you enter it. It’s small, dim, and dirty, smelling strongly of cigarette smoke. You slide your card into the slot by the floor numbers, and the light turns green, the elevator doors sliding closed and the buttons flicking on in response. Recalling what Mr. Calibur told you, you push the number _10._

The elevator begins its descent. You fidget, eyes glued to the grimy screen where the floor numbers flicker as the elevator passes them. You’ve always hated small spaces, especially death-traps like old cable elevators. You sigh. As you descend deeper into the earth, you can feel your ears popping. You wonder how many meters below ground you are, and immediately steer your brain in a different direction because if you contemplate it too long you just might go mad. Instead, you eye the dirt on the metal floor with distaste. You wonder when this thing was cleaned last, if it ever was since its installation.

Finally, when you’re growing light-headed from the cigarette smoke, the doors shiver open with a faint _ding,_ and you step out into the lowest level of Erebus labs, coughing furiously, at last setting foot in the place you saw on the terminal screen six years ago, when you were but thirteen years old.

The place where your mother works is clean and white and delightfully modern. You pass several examination rooms laden with the best medical technology Erebus has to offer, as well as countless offices and laboratories and terminal rooms. But they are all empty, devoid of Mother or anyone else at all. The silence is almost eerie. A childish part of your brain half-expected it to be ringing with the screams of the test subjects, but of course all the staff would have gone home for the night.

“Dylan,” says a voice from behind you. You whirl, and then relax when you realize that it’s your mother. You frown as you take in her appearance: her usually impeccable bun is a mess, strands of hair falling out of it to frame her face. Her glasses are slightly askew, and beneath her white coat she wears sweatpants and a band t-shirt rather than her usual pantsuit. You haven’t seen her since your father died. For a moment, she stands still, looking at you. “You have his eyes,” she murmurs softly, and despite her furious blinking the tears still slip down her cheeks to splatter on her lab coat. Wordlessly, you come forward and enfold her in your arms. You’re taller than her now, and she buries her head in your shoulder. You rub her back, blinking back your own tears because there’s something very strange about seeing your cool and collected mother break down like this and you don’t like it at all.

“It’s all my fault,” she whispers. “My idea. My fault.”

“No,” you say automatically. “Father knew the risks. You didn’t force him.”

The soft, choking sobs cut off as she drags in a deep, shuddering breath. “Please don’t b-blame yourself,” you murmur before she can speak, drawing her closer to you. “I don’t think he’d want that.” Thereafter, she’s silent, and the two of you stand hugging each other for a long time.

“I’m sorry,” she says sometime later, pulling away with a great sniff. “I’ve dirtied your coat.” You shake your head, not trusting yourself to speak, and offer her your handkerchief. She blows her nose with a honk. You wipe your eyes on your sleeve and clear your own nose with a tissue you have stowed in the inside pocket of your coat.

“We don’t have much time,” says Mother, shaking her head as if to clear it. She strides off down the hall, tennis shoes squeaking softly on the pale floor. You follow in her wake.

“I’ve put explosives on every floor below the ground,” she says tersely. “They’re set to detonate in exactly thirty minutes.”

“What about the test subjects?”

“What about them?” she asks dispassionately. “They’re all half-mad. Death would be a blessing to them.”

“I suppose so,” you say.

“All except one. We’re taking her with us. Her name is Patricia Thompson and she is the thing that my sisters have been seeking so desperately these past twenty years. It seems she has achieved immortality, although I remain unsure. The formula I used was, at the time, extremely temperamental. It’s thoroughly permeated her cells, so she may die within the next decade or continue as she is for any number of years. All I know is that biologically, she hasn’t aged since I injected her with it.” From the pocket of her sweatpants, she pulls out a small tube. “This holoscreen contains all of my research, as well as a few other...important details. Put it in your bag and keep it safe, no matter what.”

She hands it to you, and you stop, unzipping your bag and tucking it safely away amongst a few pairs of carefully-folded pants. “Where are we going, by the way?” you ask when you finish.

Your mother glances at a security camera. “I’ve disabled the network, but I’d best not tell you until we’re safely out of the building.”

She turns into a small office that resembles a doctor’s examination room. “But before we can escape, we need to cut the nubs from the back of our necks. Otherwise they could track us wherever we go. You first.”

“But-“

“If we’re discovered, it’s you they’ll kill. They need me.”

“Yes, Mother,” you say with a grudging sigh. She nods, turning around and pulling an assortment of medical supplies from the cabinets on the wall.

“Turn around and remove your shirt.”

You oblige, and immediately feel the pinch of a needle in your neck. “It numbs the area,” she explains. “Can you feel my fingernail digging into your skin?”

“No.”

“Excellent. Please try not to move your neck or head.”

It’s silent, save for the soft buzz of the electric lights. You try not to shudder as you feel drops of blood creep down your back.

Suddenly, there is a sharp pain, beginning at the top of your spine and racing down your nerve endings like liquid fire. You cry out, hands jerking spastically, trying your utmost not to flinch.

“Almost…” your mother murmurs, and then the pain stops as abruptly as it started. You sigh, relaxing, as your mother cleans and bandages your wound. As you put on your clothes, she drops something small into your hand.

The device is small and black, shaped rather like a grape and coated with blood. One end of it has a sharp point, presumably used to anchor it to your spine. “ _This_ can kill me?” you ask, holding it up. It’s very small, akin to the size of a raisin.

Grimly, your mother nods. “Yes. It is of my own design, unfortunately.”

You exhale sharply, a huff of humorless amusement. “How ironic.”

“Mmhmm. Let’s go pick up Patricia, and then we’ll go to the robotics ward for mine. Improper removal of the device can cause lifelong paralysis.”

“Oh.”

She exits the room. As you follow, you drop the small device and crush it to bits beneath your heel. You grin, a sudden feeling of happiness ballooning in your chest. It’s as if a great weight has suddenly been lifted from you, a weight you didn’t know you carried until now. You tell your mother this, and she laughs.

After a journey through more hallways, you arrive at a door, plain, unmarked, and windowless. Your mother knocks, two sharp raps upon the doorframe. Almost immediately, it flies open, revealing a young-looking girl with short blonde hair and wide blue eyes. “I’m not leaving this planet without my sister, Ms. Arianne,” she says, crossing her arms. Her eyes flick to you. “Is that your kid?”

“I have a name,” you say dryly. “It’s Dylan.”

She sticks her tongue out. “Nobody asked you, Kid.”

“Not now, Patti,” your mother says tiredly. “We’ll pick up your sister, I promise. Now let’s-“

Suddenly, she freezes, her mouth open. “Mother,” you say, as Patricia makes a noise of concern and starts forward as well. “Mother, what’s-“

“Don’t touch me,” she chokes out thickly, lifting her hands as if they’re weighed down with bricks. “They’ve found us-“

She coughs. Blood sprays from between her lips, dribbles to the floor. Her eyes, so wide the whites are showing, meet yours, and they’re _afraid._

 

and then

 

her body crumples, convulsing horribly on the floor. Her back arches only to abruptly straighten, her eyes roll, wild and unseeing, red foam gathers at the corners of her lips to drip down her cheeks, her limbs flail, her body twists, all as if she is having a seizure. She doesn’t scream, but occasionally these awful grunts escape her, as if she’s trying. But her neurons are no match for the electrical overload, and eventually even the groans die down. The convulsions stop as quickly as they came, and your mother takes one more shuddering breath before her eyes roll up in her head and all life leaves her body. Suddenly, it’s silent except for the buzz of the harshly bright overhead lights. You and Patricia are frozen, stupefied, unable to look away from her crumpled, twisted form, unable to believe that what just happened is real. But your mother begs to differ. Blood drips from her open mouth, making red tracks down the pale skin of her cheek.

That’s when the lights go out. Beside you, Patricia whimpers.

Automatically, you reach out, hand fumbling at her wrist because it’s shaking so badly. “Come on,” you say. You hear your voice as if from far away: a steady monotone, a robot’s voice. “We need to leave. The explosives are going to detonate in fifteen minutes. Do you know where we can find a flashlight?”

“No,” Patricia murmurs.

“Do you know a way out?”

“N-no.”

You swear, your voice without inflection. “Come on, then. We need to leave.”

You try to remember the way you came in. One long hallway, a left down another, a right down another (that was the way, wasn’t it?). Three turns (or perhaps four?). You break out into a run, Patricia right behind you. “D’you know where you’re going?” she asks.

“No,” you say, and run faster, one hand trailing along the wall in an attempt to keep track of where you are.

It’s a nightmare, navigating in darkness so thick and black it feels as if you are being smothered, drowned, _stopped_. You take deep breaths and count to eight, over and over. You’re shaking so badly now, claustrophobia and dawning horror threatening to send you into a panic attack. _Onetwothreefourfivesixseveneight._ Your mother’s body, twisted and jerking, eyes rolled back in its head, flashes at you in the dark, and you almost stumble. _Onetwothreefourfivesixseveneight._ Is this what happened to your father as he was sitting in his office? Did his blood splatter against his terminal screen? _Onetwothreefourfivesixseveneight._ When you turn around, they’re there, your parents, moaning your name, blood dripping from their open mouths, their limbs so grotesquely twisted they can hardly walk and their eyes rolled back in their heads, reaching, reaching for you you you, and when you scream you’re not sure if it’s an apology or a plea to _LEAVE ME ALONE_ but

_onetwothreefourfivesIXSEVENEIGHT_

“Kid?” says a voice. It sounds so very far away, like an echo.

_ONETWOTHREEFOURFIVESIXSEVENEIGHT_

“ _Kid?!_ ”

_ONETWOTHREEFOURFIVESIXSEVENEIGHT_

“DYLAN! DYLAN, GET UP! _DYLAN! WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!”_

_ONETWOTHREEFOURFIVESIXSEVENEIGHT_

_“GET YOUR ASS MOVING, DAMN YOU!”_

her hands, Patricia’s hands, are shaking you and she’s screaming and maybe crying too. “I’m here,” you say, and you’re still shaking but when you open your eyes your parents are gone, and you grab her hand and leap to your feet and _run_ again _,_ faster than you’ve ever run in your life. you can’t let go of her fingers even if you wanted to, but it seems to be okay because she’s there beside you, her warm living breaths assuring you that _you are not dead not dead not dead,_ and they give you strength, because maybe there’s hope, maybe you can escape this nightmarish dark hell miles beneath the earth and breathe the fresh sweet air and see the sun, bright and warm and real

_straight_

_right_

_left_

_left_

_left_

_straight_

_(onetwothreefourfivesixseveneight)_

Your fingers scrabble along the wall: there, the button. Patricia tugs on your sleeve. “Fuck,” she gasps. “Fuckfuckfuckfuck _fuck,_ I see flashlights. Dylan, there are flashlights, what does that mean?!”

“Nothing good,” you hiss, your hand mashing the button over and over. “Come _on,_ dammit!” you half growl, half moan, whipping around. You can see the play of light at the end of the hallway, and your heart leaps into your throat, adrenaline flooding your veins. Those flashlights belong to your aunts’ goons, you’re sure of it. You punch the button with renewed strength. The elevator door _has_ to open, because the hallway is a dead end; there’s nowhere else to go, and you _can’t_ be caught because otherwise _they will make you pay_

A flashlight beam arrows down the hall, landing squarely on Patricia Thompson’s face.

A beat of silence.

Then Patricia screams, a sound of pure, unadulterated fear. “ _I don’t wanna go back,”_ she sobs, pushing you out of the way to scrabble at the elevator door, which remains hopelessly shut. “ _They can’t make me go back there, no no no, he’ll cut me up, he’ll cut me up while I sleep-“_

The lights are brilliant, like little suns charging towards you, blinding you, and for a moment you’re transfixed until the elevator doors open with a surprisingly mundane-sounding _ding!_ You stumble backwards, into the small metal box, yanking Patricia in with you, your fist mashing on the button to make the door close, the lights in your eyes coming closer closer closer. You hear the heavy footfalls of booted feet, the shouts of _“STOP!”,_ but none of that matters anymore, because the doors are almost closed and then your pursuers are late, beautifully, mercifully late. The doors close just as the goons reach it, and slowly, slowly, the elevator creaks and shivers and clanks its slow, cigarette-smelling way to the open sky.

* * *

 

_(patti)_

“Where are we going?” you huff. Outside, it’s frigid. You’re clad only in the shift that they gave you in the lab, your feet bare, goosebumps standing out on your arms.

Dylan shakes his head, a sharp, jerky motion. “Someplace far away. The bombs could go off any moment now.”

You skid to an abrupt stop, suddenly feeling as if the bottom has dropped out of your stomach. “ _Wait,_ ” you say, and he pauses, golden eyes sharp and impatient. You open your mouth, but the words won’t come.

“ _What?”_

“If they go off, that’ll collapse the basement. All of it.”

“Yes. And your point is…?”

“If the basement collapses, the skyscraper would too, right?”

Dylan nods once, his eyes glued to your face.

“My sis lives a few blocks away from here,” you choke out. “If the building falls, she’ll...she’ll be…”

Dylan takes a very deep, deliberate breath. One hand comes up to cover his face. It sounds like he’s counting to himself.

“Are you _shitting_ me,” he says finally, his voice very flat.

“ _No!”_ you shriek, suddenly furious. You aim a barrage of kicks at him. “ _What the fuck is wrong with you?! There is no way that we’re leaving Lizzie behind! I’d rather die!”_

“ _Christ,_ calm down!” Dylan snarls, shoving you away. “We’ll go get her and get the hell off this planet. If we die, I’m blaming you.”

“I don’t care, _Dipshit.”_

You take off running even though you’re already tired. You don’t care about the people on the sidewalk who give you strange looks as you sprint by. All you can think of is Lizzie, sleeping and vulnerable and completely unaware of the danger she’s in. At last, the apartment complex appears in front of you, and you slow down to a brisk walk, panting almost too hard to speak. Dylan is in the same condition, and neither of you say anything as you trudge into the lobby and hop on yet _another_ elevator.

“I _hate_ elevators,” you gasp with sudden ferocity, temporarily overcoming your exhaustion to articulate the thought.

“Funny,” Dylan replies, still struggling to steady his breathing as he steps over the threshold once the doors ding open. “I...live here...as well.”

“ _Whaaat?!_ ”

“Yes. Two hundred and twenty-fourth floor.”

“Lizzie lives...on the two hundred and thirty-sixth.”

“She’s higher than me! Unfair!”

“It’s cuz she’s _nicer._ ”

“Oh shut up, Patricia.”

“Although why’re you living _here?”_ you ask. Anything to distract yourself from the unbearable pressure in your throat, the hysteria bubbling beneath that. “You’re Ms. Ari…” You trail off, the image of the woman’s gruesome end running through your mind. Involuntarily, your eyes fill with tears. Out of the corner of your eye, you see Dylan glance at you, golden eyes piercing. “You’re your mama’s son,” you say. “Why aren’t you living in some fancy apartment in the rich part of town?”

“Because I didn’t want to.”

“Are you crazy?!”

“No,” he replies evenly. “I merely wished to make my own way and not rely on my family’s fortune.”

“Oh.”

The elevator fills with awkward silence. You wipe your eyes and glance at the floor number, still frustratingly low. Dylan leans up against a corner, golden eyes hooded, staring at nothing. You shoot glances at him from time to time. He really looks like Ms. Arianne, from his pale skin to the shape of his face to his shiny black hair. Only his eyes are different: the piercing gold of someone whose family has lived on Eibon-7 for generations rather than Ms. Arianne’s dark brown.

“Who’s your dad?”

Dylan’s pretty eyes meet yours and then flit away. “He was a good man,” he says.

“He’s dead?”

“Yes.”

“I’m sorry.”

“What do you have to apologize for?”

You shrug, shifting from foot to foot. “Dunno,” you mutter, and silence falls again. You glance up at the floor number: _138._

This time, it’s Dylan who breaks the quiet. “Who was my mother to you?”

“Kind,” you say, looking at the ground. “She treated me like I was a _person,_ not a _test subject._ Not like the other doctors.”

“Ah,” he says.

“I’m going to miss her,” you say suddenly, wiping at your nose. “She was almost like…like…like the mom I never had. God, that sounds so stupid, especially considering where I was, what they did to me.” You tilt your head towards the ceiling, blinking rapidly.

Dylan looks at you, head leaning slightly to one side, golden eyes liquid and swimming with some unfathomable emotion.

“Y’look a lot like her, ya know,” you tell him softly, still gazing up, the corners of your mouth twitching downwards.

“Yes, I know,” he murmurs, and his voice sounds a million miles away.

The elevator chimes softly then, its doors sliding open whisper-quiet. At that, you bolt into the hallway, Dylan right on your heels.

It’s silent, almost peaceful on this floor, the occupants blissfully unaware that the remainder of their lives has been cut to a matter of minutes. You find Sis’s apartment quickly, the number illuminated by a softly-glowing plaque. You knock out your special rhythm on the door as loudly as you can without attracting attention, and then rock back on your bare heels.

“I thought test subjects weren’t allowed to leave the lab,” Dylan says hoarsely.

“No, they’re not,” you say. “But Ms. Arianne would sometimes leave my door unlocked and I’d sneak away to see her.”

“What’s her name?”

“Elizabeth. But most people just call her Liz.” You knock again, so hard it hurts your knuckles. “And she’s…different.”

Just then, the door swings open, revealing a very sleepy-looking Sis, cybernetic limbs on full display with the loose t-shirt and shorts she wears. “Patti…?” she asks, robotic knuckles digging into her one human eye. “What’s…what are you…who’s _that?”_

“That’s Dylan,” you say. “I’ll explain everything later, I promise, but right now we’ve _got to go._ ”

Your sister frowns. “But-”

“ _Please,”_ you say, and some of the hysteria you’re just barely managing to keep at bay escapes. “A building’s gonna to collapse any time now and if it does you’ll be crushed so please please _please_ just grab some coats and let’s go!”

Your sister’s mouth thins into a grim line as her eyes dart between your face and Dylan’s. At last, she nods once, disappearing back into the apartment. For what feels like an incredibly long time, she doesn’t reappear. “Sis, _hurry,”_ you call out more than once. At last, she emerges with boots on her feet, a long coat draped over her pajamas, and a bag slung over her shoulder. She gives you a pair of boots and a coat like hers, and you put them on as the three of you run back towards the elevator.

“So where are we going?” Lizzie asks as the elevator descends.

“Away,” Dylan replies tersely.

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

“Off-planet,” Dylan says, and you nod vigorously.

Sis raises her eyebrows. “I’m still on parole-“

“They’ll torture you for information on our whereabouts,” Dylan says flatly, looking your sister dead in the eyes. “Patricia is a very important test subject and I am the heir to Erebus Medical. I promise I will explain everything once we are out of danger.”

“If I go back to jail because of you-“

“I don’t intend for that to happen. Elizabeth, do you have a companion bot?”

“Yes,” says your sister. “Why?”

“I need you to summon a taxi with instructions for it to take us to the nearest port.”

“Aye aye, Captain,” Sis mutters sarcastically, but she pulls out her small mobile, fingers flying across the screen.

“Done,” she says after a few moments.

“Excellent,” Dylan replies, and the remainder of the descent passes in uneasy, vaguely panicked silence. At every small noise, you jump, unable to stop imagining debris tearing through the apartment complex and crushing you flat.

When the doors slide open, the three of you sprint towards the building’s exit. Mercifully, a cab is waiting, just as your sis requested, and you all pile in. “ _Go,”_ Dylan says, almost before the door closes, and the AI complies, whisking you up and away to safety.

 -o-

You manage to slip onto a passenger liner a scant thirty minutes before takeoff. Dylan, who packed an obscene amount of money into his bag, buys three seats in the third-class deck. The three of you settle in without incident.

“Okay,” Sis says, leaning forward so she can glare at Dylan across you. “Now tell me why the _everloving_ fuck you and Patti dragged me out of bed at ass o’clock in the morning without explanation!”

Dylan sighs. “It’s complicated,” he says. “I suppose I should start at the beginning.”

The tale he weaves is like something out of a spy movie: subterfuge and murderous family members and desperate plotting and not-so-accidental murders, as well as exactly how important you are to everyone. You frown. It explains a lot, really: Ms. Arianne’s manner when she talked about her work, her seemingly frantic pace, and the unexplainable visits from her two sisters, Madeline and Shaula. You shiver, remembering the way they looked at you, like they wanted to peel your skin back and ferret out every one of its secrets.

When he finishes, there is a beat of silence. Sis’s mismatched blue eyes are wide, her mouth half-open.

“ _Oh my God,”_ she says, and then her arms loop around you, clutching you close. “Oh my God,” she repeats “I’m so sorry,” she tells Dylan, and he nods stiffly. Her arms loop around you, pulling you close. “You could have _died,_ ” she murmurs. “Just to pay for my…aw, Patti…”

And she proceeds to cry quietly into your coat.

“Shh, Sis, it’s okay,” you say, patting her head. “We take care of each other, remember?”

“Yeah,” she says with a sniffle. “Yeah, we do.”

“Takeoff commences in approximately one minute,” the ship says. “Please fasten your safety belts and secure your belongings.”

“I’ve never ridden on a starship before,” you say.

“Me neither,” says Sis, wiping away a tear from her one human eye.

“Nor I,” murmurs Dylan.

“Let’s switch,” you say to him. “I wanna sit by the window.”

“But _Patti…”_

“Don’t worry, Dylan’s okay! He won’t bother you!”

“But I hardly know him!”

“Takeoff is in five seconds anyway,” Dylan says dryly, and then you’re flattened to your seat as the liner catapults itself off the ground and into the air, rocketing towards the nothingness of space. Your eyes slide almost shut and for a brief moment you can’t breathe. It feels like you are being crushed. You feel like you’re about to black out when, mercifully, the weight disappears. All three of you take great gulps of air. You swallow, and your ears pop.

“Takes some getting used to,” says Sis, shaking her head. You glance at her and can’t stop the snort of laughter from escaping at her appearance. In the zero-g, her hair has fanned out all around her in a fluffy blonde cloud, unmasking her piercing robotic eye.

Lizzie sticks her tongue out at you. “You’re one to talk,” she says, reaching out and rubbing your head.

You glance at Dylan. His hair is shorter than yours, but it’s long enough that the effect of weightlessness on it is noticeable. “You look funny without your bangs,” you tell him with a giggle.

Dylan glares, but there’s no real venom behind it. “Oh shut up, Patricia.”

You grab Sis’s bag and start tossing it from hand to hand, laughing at the ease with which you can bat it around. “It’s like we’re underwater,” you say.

Sis smiles. “Yeah,” she agrees, running a hand through her flyaway hair. “Damn, I wish I’d brought a ponytail holder…”

“Quantum jump will commence in thirty seconds. Please keep your belts on and remain seated,” the ship’s computer announces in a cool voice.

“Do you feel it when it happens?” you ask.

“You’re not supposed to,” Dylan replies.

“Can you see it?”

Dylan glances out the window, and you follow his gaze and can’t help but gasp. Beyond the thick glass is _Eibon-7,_ huge and round and glittering, veined with bright yellow lights like so many stars. “Woah,” you breathe, and Dylan nods fervently in agreement.

And then, abruptly, impossibly, it vanishes, to be replaced with inky diamond-speckled black, so very dark compared to the brilliance of your homeworld. At the same time, Sis gasps, a swear flying from between her lips.

“Sis? What’s wrong?”

Lizzie shudders and shifts, moving her legs, her arms, her fingers, her eye. “My prosthetics went dead for a second there.”

“Interesting,” Dylan says, squinting at your sister, but doesn’t comment further. Instead, he yawns widely, and you find yourself doing the same.

“Let’s get some sleep,” Dylan says. “It’s been a long day.”

“Mmm,” you hum, leaning back in your seat and twining Lizzie’s cool robot fingers with your warm living ones. “Nighty night, Sis.”

“Night, Patti.”

“Night, Dylan.”

“Goodnight.”

-o-

are you awake? asleep? you don’t know and can’t remember, but it’s okay, because you’re warm and safe and sis is right beside you. but then you hear noises, noises that sound like someone’s choking, and slowly slowly your head turns to see a man ( _dylan,_ your brain tells you), face all scrunched up, a screen clenched tightly in his hand and tears dripping hot and thick from beneath his closed eyelids.

“why y’cryin’?” you slur (or you think you do anyway). “we’re righ’ here.” somehow you move your heavy, heavy arm, fingers fumbling to link with his. “s’fine,” you mumble. “sleep.”

dylan’s eyes meet yours. they’re gold and wet and glittering, pools of molten metal, wide and blazing in his angled pale face. you smile. “y’have pretty eyes,” you say. “i could drown in ‘em.” and so you do, letting them grow bigger and bigger until you’re swimming in a sea of liquid gold, warm like the sun.

 


	10. spartoi

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> spartoi mix: http://8tracks.com/sleepmarshes/i-didn-t-care-but-now-i-can-see
> 
> listen for extra feels

_(tsubaki)_

“On the count of three,” Black Star says, grinning. “One…two…” And he jumps, plummeting off the floating island with a whoop that echoes through the Mawoid sky.

“Cheater!” you laugh, and ever so casually you lean over the edge, letting yourself plummet for a little while, just for the thrill, before activating your endoskeleton with a thought and rocketing after him.

“Can’t catch me!” Black Star shouts ahead of you, somewhere to your right.

“Bet I can!” you call back, your nanos flocking to your hands. Black Star snorts, this time from your left, and you zip upward, scanning your surroundings for hints of his wild shock of hair. You’re flying above the city, amidst a pack of floating islands comprised mainly of slender, graceful stone arches dripping with vines, asteroid-like rocks peppered with holes, and hilly platforms where trees cling, roots digging into the rock. One of them, the largest, even has what looks like a small, uninhabited cottage perched atop it. The bright light of Mawu’s twin moons bleaches everything monochrome, but below, the city lights twinkle as colorful as ever amidst the great vast jungle. You squint. Where is he? The night sky is lit up by the moons, and he was never the best at hiding. “Black Star?” you call. “Where-“

“YAHOO!”

Something slams into you from behind and whisks you up, up, up, leaving the clump of convoluted islands behind to hover suspended in the air. Black Star’s metal hand is cool on your waist, and you smile, turning in his embrace to face him and looping your arms around his neck. “Found you,” you say, and at that he grins roguishly, eyes looking directly into your own.

“More like _I_ found _you,_ Princess,” he says, and the look on his face makes something warm and deep kindle to life in your belly.

“That you did,” you say, and he chuckles before leaning forward and kissing you. His lips are hot and sweet and a little chapped, and you can’t help the laugh that escapes you because it’s so _miraculous_ up here in the night sky, in the arms of your dear one, your bright and shining star, the man who you thought was lost forever but in fact was here all-

“ _WOAH!”_ cries out Black Star, and suddenly he’s gone, plummeting through the night, yelling incoherently because his concentration broke and now his exoskeleton won’t support him. You suppress a smirk and then dive after him, nanoropes shooting from your right arm to wrap securely around his body. “Silly! _”_ you call down to him as you swoop towards the nearest floating island. “Having fun there, weren’t you?”

He sticks his tongue out at you. “AH, SHUT UP, TSU _BAKA!_ YOU WERE JUST AS INTO IT!”

Laughing, you deposit him gently on the soft grass, landing beside him in a sitting position a few moments later, the nanos seeping back into your skin. You smile, leaning forward. “I _was,”_ you say. Black Star smirks, eyebrows dancing. You giggle.

“I like that look in your eye,” he says softly, and his lips meet yours. This time your kiss is deeper, fiercer, and the two of you fall back onto the ground, with you on top of Black Star, legs straddling his torso. His hands slide up your thighs beneath your dress, leaving trails of fiery heat against your skin, and you shiver against him, your exhalation tremulous. He grasps your hipbones and is just about to pull you forward when a shrill, unfamiliar voice shatters the quiet of the night.

“I _SWEAR,_ YOU _HOOLIGANS,_ GET YOUR NOISY ASSES THE HELL OFF MY LAWN! SOME PEOPLE ARE TRYING TO _SLEEP!_ ”

Lights flick on, flooding the yard, and with a burst of horror and a strangled squeak, you tear yourself away from Black Star to hover several feet in the air, fighting in vain the blush that turns your whole face scarlet. From the open door of the suddenly not-so-uninhabited cottage stomps a girl, illuminated by the bright porch lights. She’s skinny and shapeless beneath an oversized t-shirt, her ashy blonde hair a rat’s nest and a basket of what looks like _pomegranates_ of all things clutched in one hand. But what really scares you are her eyes, a vivid, emerald green, piercing and absolutely _livid._ They rake first over Black Star and then up to you. You see her put the pieces together, see her jaw drop, and for a moment she is completely speechless as she splutters barefoot in the grass. You hide your face in your hands, too humiliated to look.

“OH MY _GOD!”_ she shrieks finally, her voice seeming to have transcended several octaves. “I CANNOT _BELIEVE…AAARGH!_ SOUL! SOUL EVANS, GET OVER HERE! I NEED YOU TO FRYTHESE…THESE _TRESPASSERS…_ ohmigod, _SOUL!”_

“ _WHAT?!”_

A new voice, deep and extremely irritated. You peer between your hands. Another figure who could only be Soul Evans is emerging from the cottage, a figure with hair the color of snow and startlingly sanguine eyes and teeth sharp like sharks’. _Khionian,_ you think suddenly, the word stark and simple and shocked.

“Fucking _hell,_ woman, calm down, you’re making my neck hurt,” he growls at the girl in lilting, accented Common.

“WHAT ABOUT THEM?! YOU WOULDN’T BELIEVE WHAT THEY WERE DOING-“

The Khionian turns his attention towards the two of you, red eyes narrowed. You fidget a little in the air, trying your hardest to push away the memories of the past few minutes and hoping against hope that Black Star is doing a better job at it than you are. But it only takes a few moments for Soul’s eyes to fly wide open. “ _Fuck,”_ he gasps, actually backing away a few steps and swearing colorfully in what you presume to be Khionian. “I am _never_ touching that spot _ever again-“_

“WHERE DID YOU FUCKWADS EVEN _COME_ FROM?!”

The bottom of your stomach drops. Black Star has regained his powers of communication. You fight the urge to sob. It’s all over.

“ _EXCUSE_ ME?!” shouts the girl, lifting a pomegranate in her arm like she’s about to throw it. “ _WHO’S_ A FUCKWAD?? _YOU_ PUT THE _FUCK_ IN IT _,_ THAT’S FOR SURE _!”_

“YEAH? WELL, LOOKIT YOU, SHORTY! HOW OLD ARE YOU, TWELVE?!”

“SHUT UP! I’M FOUR HUNDRED AND FUCKING _SEVEN_ , FOR YOUR INFORMATION! _NOW GET YOUR STUPID MONKEY FACE OFF MY ISLAND RIGHT NOW OR ELSE!”_

Black Star flips her the middle finger and makes a face. “MAKE ME!”

The girl lets out an inarticulate shout of rage and lets the pomegranate fly. You watch it turn over and over through the air as if in slow motion, almost incredulous with horror. “ _No!”_ you cry, too late. The fruit hits Black Star squarely in the face, so hard he staggers back.

“Oh,” he says clutching his bloody nose. His voice has gone deadly quiet. “You’ve just made a _big_ mistake, little girl.”

And he charges.

You and Soul act at the same time. He tackles Black Star to the ground, while your nanos wrap tightly around the girl, preventing her from attacking with a barrage of pomegranates from her basket.

“MMF! _MMMMF!”_ she grunts, wriggling in your restraints to no avail. Curiously, there’s no sound coming from Black Star, and you glance over at him. He’s lying, apparently paralyzed, on the ground, glaring furiously at Soul, who has one hand on his chest and the other on his arm.

“Sorry,” the Khionian says gruffly, and he shoots an exasperated glance at the girl, who growls, glaring daggers right back. “Maka doesn’t take kindly to, ah, trespassers.”

“Oh, it’s fine, it’s fine,” you laugh, slightly hysterical. “M-my fault. I saw the cottage but I didn’t think anyone lived here. I’m really sorry for, um… _everything,”_ you say, heat returning to your face with a vengeance.

“Ah, erm, yeah, s’alright,” Soul says, seemingly as embarrassed about the whole affair as you are. “Just…check next time, yeah?”

“Y-yes,” you agree, laughing weakly. “Well, um, it was nice meeting you, Soul-san, and I’m _so_ sorry,” you say, hastily folding into a bow.

“Yeah, you too, and s’alright,” he says waving a hand. “Let’s trade,” he says, lifting the hand on Black Star’s arm to receive Maka, whom you gladly deliver.

“ _Soul, don’t you-“_ she begins, but then she collapses under Soul’s paralyzing electricity. He lifts his remaining hand from Black Star (whom you quickly restrain before he can bite Soul’s calf) and catches Maka, throwing her limp form over his shoulder like a sack of flour.

“Well, um, g’night,” he says awkwardly.

“Goodnight!” you say, and with Black Star in tow, you make your escape into the sky.

~

When you wake up, it’s to Black Star’s legs tangled with yours and his metal arm around your waist. You smile softly and lay beneath the covers for a few moments more before gently extricating yourself from his grasp so as not to wake him. You dress quietly before exiting the hotel room, leaving a note for Black Star on your way out.

Outside, the blazing tropical sun is muted by the overarching green of the jungle canopy, a fact for which you are grateful. The air is humid and sticky, and soon you find yourself tying your hair into a stubby ponytail to get it out of your face. All sorts of shops line the wide boulevard, from bakeries to bookstores to a small garage a few doors down, from which spill all sorts of broken bots and spare parts and even the tailfin of an antique hovercar. Kiosks line the street as well, displaying all sorts of fantastic products. You’re just thinking about going to get a delicious-looking shaved ice when an all-too-familiar voice rings out above the general hubbub of the market.

“Wait! Please! Miss, it’s, um, Maka!”

You smile tightly, bracing yourself, and then turn around.

The angry landowner from last night stands in front of you, wearing a loose spaghetti top and a pair of shorts, her ashy blonde hair in a knot atop her head. Her verdant eyes meet yours and then flit away again. A flush blooms in her cheeks. “ _I am so sorry,”_ she bursts out, squeezing her eyes shut. “I was angrybecause your shouts were keeping me up and when I saw you two in my yard I kind of, ah, _freaked out_ and...and I feel really bad about letting loose on you; Soul told me how embarrassed you were and that you really didn’t mean to do it so is it possible for you to forgive me?”

You blink, processing her monologue, and then your nervous smile relaxes into something a little more real. “Of course,” you say. Maka looks up, her eyes meeting yours, and upon seeing your face she breaks out into a grin. It’s quite becoming on her compared to a frown, and you tell her so. The other girl laughs.

“Why don’t we start over?” she asks, and draws herself up tall. “I’m Maka Albarn, but you can call me Maka,” she says with a bow, and you blink, surprised.

“My name is,” and then you pause for a brief moment because what do you tell her? “Tsubaki,” you say at last, bowing back. “Nice to meet you.”

“Likewise. Come on,” she says, beckoning. “I have a produce stand over here; I promise I won’t throw any.”

You smile in reply and follow her across the street. It’s right beside the garage, between it and the neighboring shop. Your eyes widen. Maka has every kind of edible plant and more, from apples and lettuce to strange, hairy, bright red fruits you’ve never seen before in your life and weirdly twisted tubers. Soul is manning the desk, his entire neck covered by a silvery, close-fitting material, clad in a tank top and grease stains, snowy hair tied back in a ponytail. “Can I go back to work now?” he grouses as he hands a customer a bag of sticky-looking purple plums.

“Yeah,” says Maka. “I’ve brought a friend, so no worries.”

“Hah? Oh, hello, um…”

“Tsubaki.”

“Yeah. Tsubaki.” There is a beat of awkward silence. “Sorry ‘bout last night,” Soul mutters finally before walking back to his garage.

“Don’t mind him,” Maka says, darting behind the counter and settling down on a stool. She pats the seat beside her encouragingly.“He’s just shy around strangers.”

You watch as his lithe form disappears into the garage, perching on the second stool. “Does he work there?”

“He owns it.” Maka smiles softly. “It’s nice having him around. He can fix _anything,_ and he helps so much with the harvest. Lucky I found him.”

You shoot a questioning look at her. “You’re not together?”

Maka’s face flushes scarlet. “ _No,”_ she says emphatically, shoving you gently on the shoulder. “I found the poor guy lying in a gutter about to get robbed. I couldn’t just _leave_ him there. Oh, hello, what can I get for you?”

You turn, smiling at the customer as he peruses the crates of fruit and vegetables. “I’ll have some of these, these, and these,” he says, pointing to the pomegranates, grapes, and a bundle of small, unfamiliar green fruit.

“Twenty units,” Maka says, and the man pulls out his card and swipes it.

Another customer appears, and at first you’re uncertain what to do, but under Maka’s guidance you quickly get the hang of it. The kiosk owner knows many of the people who come by, and their banter passes back and forth in the hot jungle air. It’s enjoyable, really, sitting there and selling fruit and chatting with Maka, who proves to be as kind and clever as she is ferocious. By the end of the day, you’re almost completely sold out, and you can hardly believe it because of the sheer _amount_ of fruit that was weighing down the floating stands this morning.

“People say I have the best produce in all of Mawu,” Maka says proudly as she goes about turning off the hovering shelves and securing the myriad parts of her kiosk. “Now give me your unicard.”

“What for?” you ask, digging it out of your pocket.

“So I can pay you, silly!” Maka laughs.

“Oh, really, it isn’t necessary-“

“You were a big help today,” she says firmly, snatching your card and swiping it on her small register. “I’d feel awful if I didn’t give you something.” “ _Pay_ you? Hey, what’s going on?”

You turn. Black Star stands there, his arms crossed over his chest. “And why are you talking to _her?”_ he asks, narrowing his eyes at Maka, who bristles.

“She’s actually very nice,” you say, casually stepping in between the two. “Please, Black Star, just…calm down, okay? She’s sorry for the things she said last night, it’s all fine; let’s just forget what happened and move on with our lives.”

Black Star snorts, looking around you to squint at Maka who glares right back. “Yeah, yeah,” he grumbles, and then he and Maka proceed to engage in a silent battle of wills, staring furiously right into each other’s eyes. After a few moments, you step out from between them, utterly bewildered.

“What’re those two idiots _doing?”_ Soul grumbles, ambling towards you, the sign in the window of his shop now reading _CLOSED_.

“My thoughts exactly,” you say, watching their silent staring contest.

“They’re like children,” Soul says, running a hand through his shock of white hair, made even more conspicuous by the dark tan color of his skin. “Can’t leave ‘em alone for long.”

“No,” you agree with a sigh. Faintly awkward silence falls. You grasp desperately at a topic for conversation, but Soul beats you to the punch.

“M’gonna regret this,” he says, glancing at Black Star and Maka, who are still duking it out with their eyes. “But I wanna go home.” He takes the muffler off his neck. The street is still pretty crowded, and Soul grimaces, wincing. Abruptly, you’re reminded of your teacher, the way he’d look at people when trying to sense their… _currents_ , yes, that’s what he’d called them.

Soul lifts a hand to his neck, and a memory flashes through you of another hand pressed to another throat, pinned there by razor-sharp black claws, torn and dripping with hot, sticky blood-

Soul glances at you, red eyes piercing. “You okay?”

“I’m fine,” you say, a little too quickly.

He gives you one last look. “I don’t wanna pry,” he says in his lilting Common. “But you don’t like me.” He shuffles away from you, bumping up against Maka’s fruit stand. “It’s alright,” he says. “M’not…all that likable.”

“No, no,” you say, raising your hands. “It’s not that I don’t like you, you just…remind me of someone.”

He squints at you. You swallow.

_his eyes were red too_

Soul must feel your horror, your anguish, because he flinches and hurriedly puts the muffler back around his neck. “Sorry. They’re almost done anyway,” he mutters, and his crimson eyes slide closed as he takes a deep breath, reorienting himself.

You press your lips together. “You misunderstand,” you say quietly. “I don’t think you’re like…that person. He was only half-Khionian, and he shared some of your abilities, and…I’ll get over it.” In the offworlder fashion, you offer a hand. After a moment, Soul takes it, his palm warm and rough in your own. You smile. He doesn’t return it, but he nods, eyes meeting yours.

“You’ve got _guts,_ I’ll give you that,” says Black Star, and you jump. So does Soul, a prickle of electricity shivering from his hand to yours. The two of you turn to see Maka and Black Star actually _nodding_ to one another.

You and Soul exchange helpless, baffled glances as the pair come towards you.

“We resolved our differences,” Maka says cheerfully. “Let’s go, Soul,” she says. “It’s getting late. See you tomorrow?” she asks you, green eyes bright.

After a few moments, you nod. “Okay.”

“Great!” Maka says with a wave, and she and Soul climb into a battered, positively ancient hovercar and sputter off into the sky.

You turn your gaze to Black Star. “How…?”

“She’s icy,” Black Star says with a shrug, looping his human arm around your shoulder. “Sorry for being a dick earlier,” he tells you.

“It’s fine.”

“Hey, so did you get a job today?”

“I think so.”

“Hmm…I wonder if that Khionian dude’ll let me work in his garage.”

“Do you know how to fix robots and cars and things like that?”

He grins, lifting up his prosthetic arm. It rearranges itself into an arsenal of tools. “No,” he says. “But my arm does.”

You sigh and roll your eyes, albeit good-naturedly.

* * *

_(soul)_

“Black Star,” you say, poking you head out of your small office. “Turn down your goddamn noise.”

The man in question rolls out from underneath a hovercar, smeared in grease. “This stuff you call _noise_ is pure art, so I won’t,” he says, brandishing his robotic hand-turned-wrench at you.

You sigh, your fists clenching at your sides as the awful techno-rap launches into a new verse. “I’m trying to finish a rush job _,_ screwbrain,” you sigh. “I can’t concentratewith your trashy excuse for music turned up full volume.”

“Watch what you’re calling trash,” Black Star says. “These are my jams you’re talking about.”

“I’ll fry your arm,” you say flatly. Your fellow mechanic’s eyes grow wide, his prosthetic arranging itself from a large speaker  with a hand attached back into a normal shape.

“Bro. C’mon. Don’t talk like that.”

“I love that tech more than you, Star, but I’ll do it if it means I’ll get some peace and quiet.”

Black Star eyes you. “You wound me, Evans. I thought we were bros for _life.”_

“We’ll still be if you turn your, ah, _jams_ down.”

Black Star huffs. “Thanks, man,” you say, retreating back into your office, where it’s mercifully techno-rap free at last.

//

Your eyes fly open and you sit up, panting, barely restraining the shout that wants to fly from between your lips. Frantically, you look around. Everything in your office is as normal: dark and still. The light on your workbench hovers bright and yellow above the rush job, illuminating the android brain components that you’d been trying to reinstall in its skull. After a moment, however, you pinpoint the source of the volatile terror and anxiety that catapulted you from sleep: three unfamiliar currents, quite close by. You frown and stand up, ever so slowly so as not to make any noise, and creep out of your small office, electricity humming just beneath your skin.

You grit your teeth. Their emotions are wild, out of control, spilling everywhere, smothering you, loud and roiling like the ocean in a storm. No wonder they woke you. You creep past the shadowy form of the hovercar Black Star is trying to repair, glancing around, and that’s when you hear them.

“…can’t move,” says a female voice, and it sounds like she’s on the edge of hysteria. “I can’t move and I don’t know why, oh _GodohGodohGod,_ what did they do to me?!”

“Please calm down,” says a man’s voice, low and clipped, sounding much more controlled than he actually is. “There is a way to fix this.”

His current says what he doesn’t: _I think._

“There better be!” says another girl. She sounds younger than the first, and her voice wobbles. “Shh, Lizzie, it’s okay, Dylan’ll set you right, I promise!” Her current crackles with fear and anguish, so strong that you flinch a little, wishing that you’d thought to grab the muffler back in the office.

The first woman, Lizzie, starts to cry. “I can’t _see,”_ she says. “My _eye,_ oh _God…”_

You’ve heard enough. You step out from behind the hovercar and stop short, eyebrows climbing towards your hairline at the scene laid out before you.

There are three of them: a young-looking man with dark hair and pale skin, a teenage girl with a short blonde bob, and a cyborg woman sprawled between them. All of them are dirty and bleeding from several fresh-looking wounds. The teenager and the man (you decide to call him Death Boy because of his black attire) look up at you, wide-eyed like children caught doing something they’re not supposed to, while the woman lying on the ground between them continues to cry, one of her eyes open and free of tears.

“What the hell are you doing in my garage?” you ask them.

There is a beat of silence, and then Death Boy stands up.

“We are being hunted,” he says, in the tone of one stating a fact. “Elizabeth here-“ he gestures to the cyborg sobbing softly on the floor- “has been shot by our enemies’ weapons and we’re not sure what’s wrong. Because of that we were forced to take shelter here. We’re very sorry about all of this, but desperate times call for desperate measures.”

“So…the cops are after you?”

“No. Although our pursuers may be lurking around the area. We’re not entirely sure.”

You grimace, reading truth in his current. “Look, I don’t want any trouble-“

“ _Please!”_ cries out the teenager suddenly, lurching to her feet, tears spilling down her face. “Don’t throw us out, we’ll die if-“

You back away, lifting your palms and letting glowing tendrils of electricity bloom and shiver across them. At that, the girl stops in her tracks, eyes wide in her lean face, shock temporarily blowing away the hurricane of her emotions. “What…are you a _robot?”_ she gasps. “C-can you help Sis?”

“No, he’s Khionian,” says Death Boy, and you glance at him, swift and piercing.

“Key-whatty?”

“ _Never mind,”_ you grumble, and then your eyes slide half-closed and you grit your teeth as you open yourself to their currents, seeing what you can glean about them. The girl, she’s easy to read, so intense are her feelings. Fear and exhaustion and adrenaline and anguish all sizzling through her body, making her current taut and tense and liable to explode violently if prompted. Her sister is much the same, though the terror is stronger, almost overwhelming in its magnitude, probably because her limbs are dead, leached of power. Death Boy tries to hide himself, but it’s not working, and his emotions roil and crash against one another beneath a thin veneer of numb disbelief. Deeper down though, there’s another feeling, something shivering and mercurial and fiery, and it takes you a moment to recognize it: desperation, with a core of cold ruthlessness rapidly emerging as he hardens his resolve and, you realize with a chill, prepares to murder you if he deems it necessary.

You exhale, returning to yourself, and your gaze flicks over each one of them in turn, weighing, evaluating, coming to a decision. At last, you smile humorlessly, letting your sharp teeth show. “All right, I’ll let you stay,” you tell them. “But only because you two,” you say, pointing at Death Boy and the teenager, “would murder me if I decided otherwise.”

Death Boy’s current twinges, surprise and something almost like _shame_ rocketing through his mental electrical pattern, while the teenager nods. “Damn right,” she says, pulling out a gun and twirling it around her finger. “So that means you should also fix Sis right now, Key-man, else I’ll shoot you right in the heart.”

You sigh. “Can’t that wait till morning?” you ask. “I got a job to finish.”

“Certainly,” says Death Boy, coming forward and swiftly silencing the teenager’s outraged protests with a look. “Although to put to rest Elizabeth and Patricia’s mounting panic, could you at least tell us what’s wrong with her?”

“I’m not a doctor,” you grumble. “She feels normal to me.”

“What about her limbs?!”

“Yeah, what about my limbs?” Elizabeth asks from the floor, her one human eye open and trained on you.

With a scowl, you come forward and kneel down beside her. “They’re dead, that’s all,” you tell her, lifting up one limp robotic arm and examining it. It’s a basic prosthetic, nothing special, designed simply for functionality and nowhere near the level of Black Star’s arm, which is capable of completely reconfiguring itself according to the user’s wants. Still, you’re fascinated, because you’ve never met anyone with so many artificial limbs. Curious, you delve into her current, wondering if a part of her brain was replaced too. That would make her a true cyborg, and you’ve always wanted to know what it feels like to have a computer for a brain. But no, her brain is wholly her own. You sigh, slightly disappointed. From your belt you produce a tool that detaches one of the outer plates of her arm, revealing the tangled mechanisms beneath. You take one glance at the small, lifeless engine in her shoulder and snort. “The power cells shorted out. Whatever they shot you with must’ve done it.”

“Can you fix me?”

“Yeah,” you say. “It’ll take time, though, because some of the wiring may be damaged too. I’ll have to take a closer look tomorrow.”

“So…nothing permanent?” asks Patricia, current thrumming with renewed hope and energy.

“Nah,” you say, standing and stretching.

“Did you hear that, Sis? The Key-man will fix you right up!”

Elizabeth smiles from the floor, her human eye closing, current pulsing with relief so powerful it makes even you relax. “Yeah,” she says. “Thanks. We owe you one.”

“You could start by paying me for my services,” you tell her, and she rolls her eye. “Up those stairs is a loft,” you continue, jerking your chin to the back corner of the garage. “There should be blankets.”

“Thank you,” says Death Boy, and his current feels sincere.

You snort. “I’m not doing you a favor out of the goodness of my heart,” you tell him. “If you try anything funny I’ll shock you into oblivion. Now go away; I got work to do.”

“He has a funny accent,” you hear Patricia giggle as she and Death Boy haul Elizabeth up the stairs. You sigh at that and sit back down, resuming work on the android.

//

You wake up to the feeling of cold metal against your temple, and with a grumble you try to push it away. But it doesn’t move, and irritated, you send a small lightning bolt in its general direction. There’s a yelp, and at that your eyes open to see Patricia, rubbing a burned patch of skin on her arm and glaring fiercely.

“Whaddaya want?” you mumble, yawning hugely as you sit up. Beside your workbench slumps a completed android. You feel a brief moment of satisfaction before you see the gun in Patricia’s hand.

You swear explosively in Khionian and lurch to your feet, but you forget the presence of the work bench and you’re knocked off-balance. With a yelp, you fall ungracefully to the ground, toppling a few shelves of tools in the process. They fall with loud crashing noises, some landing on you, and you groan, groggy and decidedly pissed off.

“ _Soul?!”_ Maka’s voice echoes through the garage, shrill and panicked.

“ _I’m alive,_ ” you call back. “Shut up,” you say, glaring venomously at Patricia, who’s trying in vain to suppress her laughter at the sight of you, current bubbling with amusement. “What the _hell_ are you people doing with those? Trying to take over my garage?”

“ _No,”_ she says through her giggles. “It’s just that this girl wandered in and saw us, so Dylan pulled a gun on her and sent me to get you so you could explain!”

You close your eyes. “Why me?” you ask to no one in particular, and get up with a groan, rubbing your head. Patricia jabs you in the back with her gun. “Is that necessary?” you ask, and Patricia shrugs, still giggling.

“Oh, thank God!” Maka says at the sight of you, her hands up behind her head and Death Boy nonchalantly holding a gun to her temple. “Soul, there are people trying to steal your garage!”

You glare. “Put the gun down, Death Boy,” you say. “Maka, get ahold of yourself, this-“

“I have a name, you know,” Death Boy interrupts dryly. “It’s Dylan.”

“Yeah, whatever. Anyway-“

“Wait, you know these people?”

“ _Yes,”_ you say, “and if you’ll just _let me explain-“_

“YAHOO!”

Black Star arrives in true Black Star fashion, plummeting through the open skylight on an exoskeleton, Tsubaki close behind. Death Boy’s current reads as stunned in reaction to these colorful new arrivals, and Maka takes the opportunity to knee him squarely between the legs. He collapses with a loud wheeze, and she wrests the gun from his hand and points it at his curled form at the floor.

“Your boyfriend isn’t gonna die from a kick in the balls so _please_ don’t fire that gun,” you say to Patricia, sensing her current, and she glares furiously at you before suddenly spluttering as Tsubaki’s nanos wrap around her, yanking her into the air. The gun falls to the ground with a clatter, and you pick it up.

“Okay,” Tsubaki says, and she closes her eyes and takes a deep breath. “Please, someone explain what’s going on?”

“They broke in last night,” you say, and hold up a silencing hand in Maka’s direction. “Said they were being _chased_ or some shit. I didn’t really have a choice but to let them stay, as those two would’ve murdered me before the word _leave_ was outta my mouth.”

“Wait, there’s _more_ of them?!” Black Star says, his arm rearranging itself into a canon as he looks around wildly.

“Just me,” says a new voice, and everybody whirls to see Elizabeth perched calmly in a chair, her prostheses arranged so that it looks as though she’s sitting naturally. “I’d raise my hands, but seeing as they’re broken, I can’t,” she says dryly. “Look, we’re on the run and we needed a place to stay. He,” she says, jerking her chin at you, “isn’t lying. My trigger-happy comrades probably would have murdered him if he’d kicked us out, so he really had no choice. Sorry about that,” she says to you. “We’ll be leaving as soon as you fix my limbs, no more trouble.”

“Who’s chasing you?” Maka asks, a frown on her face.

“You don’t want to know,” says Death Boy weakly from the floor. “Really,” he says, in response to her glare.

“Could you release my little sister now?” Elizabeth asks Tsubaki. “I promise she won’t shoot anyone.”

Tsubaki nods and deposits Patricia gently on the ground, her nanos flooding back into her skin like an explosion in reverse. She runs to her sister, putting her hand in hers. Death Boy gets shakily to his feet, his weird gold eyes landing on each person in turn. “I suppose we should introduce ourselves,” he says, straightening and adjusting the lapels of his black trench coat. “My name is Dylan, and-“

“I’m Liz Thompson and that’s my sister Patti,” says Liz, and she grins, wickedly amused. “Nice to meet ya. Do you people have any food? I’m starving.”

* * *

 

_(dylan)_

“So what now?” Liz asks, gesturing with her single remaining arm. She looks curiously small without the other one.

“Let’s stay,” Patti chirps from her position at a small table as she folds what looks to be an origami giraffe. “I like it here.”

“You know we can’t do that,” you tell them both with a sigh, putting your elbows on your knees and your head in your hands.

The three of you are in the loft above Soul’s shop. It’s small but pleasant, with large windows overlooking the street, air conditioning, and lots of natural light. When you first arrived here, the place was obscenely messy, but with Patti’s help you made it fit for human habitation, shelving the assorted tools and bots, wiping away the grime, and bringing in cots for the three of you. Soul has been working on Liz’s limbs on and off, interspersing them with the jobs he’s actually getting paid to do. Over the course of the past two weeks, he’s finished both Liz’s legs and her left arm, and is currently working on the right. You and Patti have been spending your time helping Soul and Black Star and (in your case) trying to hack the wireless access point embedded in Black Star’s arm with little success, as he refuses to give you the password.

“Yeah,” Patti sighs, propping her head on her arm morosely. “I know.”

“Maybe we can come back,” Liz says from a chair, waving her arm. “When all this’s blown over.”

“Maybe,” you say guardedly. “Although it might not be here when we return.”

“What d’ya mean, it won’t be here?! What’s going on?!”

You sigh. “I haven’t told either of you the whole story, but we’ve been running for a month now and you’ve proven yourselves as trustworthy to me.” You lean forward from your position on the cot, beckoning them closer. The sisters come and sit across from you, frowns of puzzlement and, in Liz’s case, suspicion as well. You reach into your battered bag, pulling out a small tube. “My mother gave me this just before she died,” you say quietly. “ _Arachne,”_ you murmur, and at the sound of your voice, a row of little lights running the length of the cylinder flicker to life. You hold your eyes wide as it scans your retinas.

“Dylan Michael Mortimer: access granted,” the screen says softly, and then a hologram like a sheet of paper flickers to life above the tube. Patti makes a soft “oh” of wonderment and comes to sit beside you, Liz taking a position on the other.

 "My mother failed,” you begin flatly. “The Erebus skyscraper never exploded.”

 Patti makes a noise that’s something between a choke and a cough.

“That means that my aunts were able to access all of my mother’s research. However, they don’t know about this,” you say, waving the screen. “It contains all my mother’s research in its entirety, as well as what exactly Madeline and Shaula planned to do with it,” you say. “She did indeed discover an immortality serum, albeit not what you’d expect. It’s called Revive, and with it, you can bring someone back from the dead.”

“No way,” Liz says, her mismatched eyes wide, incredulous. “But that can’t happen…I mean…people diefor a reason, yeah? How does that even work?”

You shrug helplessly. “Unfortunately I am not well-versed enough in chemistry to understand the exact process, but I do know that it involves nanotechnology.” Liz looks revolted. You sigh. “No matter how horrific your injuries, it can bring you back, making it extremely useful to my aunts.”

“So basically they’re _zombies?”_

“Not exactly. People who have been Revived retain the ability to rationalize and do not feel the need to eat human flesh, but…there’s something off about them,” you say, and the hologram dissolves into a picture of a man, staring hollow-eyed at the camera, plastic plating covering the lower part of his face.

“He looks…sad,” says Patti softly.

You sigh. “What my aunts were working toward these past two decades,” you say, “is nothing short of dominion over the colonies. According to this screen, they’d been assembling an army and plan to use it to wrest the Colonies from Terran control and replace Earth as the supreme power.”

Liz snorts. “Good luck with that. The Terrans’ll just fling ‘em into the sun like they did Soul’s planet…oh, what was it called…”

“Khione,” you supply, smiling bitterly.

“ _Key-oh-nee,”_ Patti repeats, tasting the word on her tongue. “It’s pretty.”

“But my aunts are well aware of this fact,” you say. “In fact, I think that’s where they got the inspiration. Brutally ironic, really. You see, they plan to send Earth sailing into its star, just as it did to Khione all those centuries ago.”

There is a tinkling _crash,_ like the sound icicles make when they fall from their roosts. The three of you whip around to the loft’s entrance. Maka stands there frozen, her brilliant eyes wide and staring right into yours, fruit and sharp pieces of glass strewn about her in the doorway.

-.-

“…and that’s all.”

A semicircle of faces stare at you, shock writ clear across them. All except for Soul, who doesn’t seem at all surprised, one corner of his mouth turned downward ever so slightly.

“So you knew about this for a _month?”_ Maka asks, her fists clenched in her lap.

You nod. “Since I first fled Eibon-7.”

“Why haven’t you done anything to stop them?” A frown is beginning to appear on her features. Soul shoots her a glance and puts a warning hand on her shoulder.

“How could I?” you counter. “I don’t have a starship and my aunts would kill me as soon as I tried to infiltrate their army.”

“That’s no excuse,” Maka says, her voice low and fierce. “You have to at least _try.”_

“Yeah,” Black Star says, and he’s looking at you like you’re something unpleasant stuck to the bottom of his shoe. “The Terrans are all shitstains and we’d all be better off without their control, but _they’re people too!_ If you’ve got the knowledge and billions of people could die if you don’t do something, it’s your fucking _duty_ to act!You can’t just _run away_ from something like that!”

“But if I were killed following some foolish plan that couldn’t possibly succeed, what good would it do anyone?” you snap. “It’s all I’ve been able to do to survive and keep my aunts off our tail. Even now, I’m afraid to leave this place because they might have tracked us here, might have people watching, waiting to kill Liz and me and steal Patti away!”

“And there’s no fucking _way_ I’m letting that happen,” Liz says, her tone fierce, arm looping around her little sister and drawing her close.

“Earth is my _homeworld,”_ Maka snaps at her. “I’m not going to let them kill it, so I’m going to stop them, with or without your help.”

“How?” you ask flatly.

“I don’t know, but I’ll figure out a way.”

You put your head in your hands. “I’ve thought and thought and thought about this,” you say softly. “Infiltration is out, because the three of us are too conspicuous. I’ve thought about ambushing them and opening up a wormhole to send them flying into the nearest star, but I don’t have a starship and I don’t know enough about their mechanics to disable the tracking beacon used to locate them in the event of such a happening. _I don’t know what to do.”_

Tsubaki, who has remained silent through the entire exchange, clears her throat. “I have a starship,” she says softly.

You perk up, and so does Maka. “Where?” she asks.

“On one of the floating islands above the city,” she says. “It’s fully functional and equipped with a quantum driver.”

You blink. “Can it project wormholes beyond the immediate vicinity of the starship?”

“It should.”

“When are they going to do this?” Maka asks.

You glance at the date on your screen and sigh. “Tomorrow.”

* * *

 

_(soul)_

It’s dark, with a hazy hint of sunrise on the horizon. The street is deserted save for you, Maka, Kid, and the Thompsons. Tsubaki and Black Star, taking Maka’s hovercar, have just left with the last delivery of provisions to her starship. You’ve closed down your shop and delivered people’s various belongings back to them unfixed with an apology on your lips. And now you’re here, leaning against the side of your darkened garage, your old knapsack on your back and a muffler on your neck, waiting for the hovercar to come back so you can go save the home planet of the people who destroyed yours with nothing more than a push of a button.

“I left Hiro in charge of the island,” Maka says, coming up beside you in pants and a jacket and mimicking your pose. “He’ll do well.”

“Yeah.”

You can’t read her current much deeper than a vague hum denoting her presence because of the muffler, but you don’t need to. Her body says it all: her eyes, not looking at you, her shoulders drawn a little forward, tight and tense, the way she’s looking down instead of up, chin lowered.

“I’m sorry,” she says softly.

“Don’t be.”

“You must hate me for making you do this.”

“No.”

“But…aren’t you angry at them?”

“I was.”

“But…you’re not anymore?” She sounds so bewildered. The corners of your lips twitch.

“Soul, quit being so mysterious,” she grumbles, peeved. “You’re not funny.”

“Isn’t it obvious, bookworm?”

“No!”

“I understand,” you say simply.

Maka falls silent, pondering your words. “What do you mean?”

You sigh, shrugging helplessly. “I dunno…just…argh, how can someone be so smart and so stupid at the same time?”

“You tell me!”

You run a hand through your hair. “Well…gah, how do I say this…I’ve found out that…one doesn’t speak for all and all doesn’t speak for one, if that makes any sense.”

Maka frowns. “So…you forgive Earth?”

“No. But I understand them. I…they’re all different, Maka. Not all of them are bloodthirsty savages who get off on destroying other people’s planets. I see that now.”

“What makes you say that?”

You don’t reply, only shake your head, a smile tugging at the corners of your lips, and return your gaze to the stars.

After several moments of silence, Maka huffs. “You’re weird,” she grumbles, and you reach over to ruffle her hair but instead end up pulling her against your chest because someone in a shapeless black cloak and a white mask has materialized out of the shadows, wielding what looks like a glowing white sword. You and Maka spring out of the way just as the mysterious figure slices downward, cutting a deep gash in the solid steel wall where your head was a moment ago.

“ _SHIT,”_ Liz snarls.

“They’ve found us!” Dylan gasps, whipping twin pistols from his belt and firing right back at his set of cloaked attackers.

 _“We noticed,”_ you hiss, fending off a cloak with a pole snatched from the scraps littered around the entrance to the garage. You risk lifting a hand and striking your assailant with lightning, but its black clothes harmlessly absorb the stuff. “What the hell _are_ you?!” you snarl, dodging as it retaliates with a bullet from its gun.

“Tsubaki, Black Star, we are under attack. Come pick us up _immediately,”_ Dylan snaps into a communicator. You hear a garbled reply but can’t make heads or tails of it. Instead, you viciously jab the cloak in what you assume is its chest, sending it stumbling back. You continue poking it at a furious pace, hoping to prevent it from getting at you with that sword.

Meanwhile, Maka’s opponent has driven her to the middle of the deserted street. Maka has a pistol in her belt, but it appears to be stuck. You hear her voice swearing explosively; hear her batting at the cloak with whatever weapon she’d managed to grab in the interim, hear the dull thud of her body falling against the earth and the scrape of her feet as she scrabbles backwards and the ragged shriek tearing itself from between her lips, and suddenly a terrible, terrible force clenches around your ribs, your lungs, your heart

_NOT AGAIN_

_PLEASE, GOD, NOT AGAIN_

and as the white sword flashes down you scream because

it feels like a _star_ has slipped beneath your skin

* * *

 

_(tsubaki)_

With a strangled yell, Black Star’s arm rearranges itself into a cannon and fires a deadly ball of plasma energy right into the cloaked figure, sending it toppling with a great red ruin where its head should have been. He leaps out to where Soul lies crumpled in front of Maka, covered in blood from the gash as wide as the canyons of your homeworld across his chest, and helps her lift him into the back seat of the hover. Liz, Patti, and Dylan pile in shortly after, and you gun the engine, just as the first of the (nauseatingly familiar) masked figures reaches the vehicle.

“ _H-hurry, Tsubaki!”_ Maka wails from the back seat, her face pale. “He’s l-losing too much b-b- _blood!”_

You push your foot harder on the gas, and Maka’s ancient hover snarls and lurches in the sky.

“ _They’re coming after us!”_ cries Patti, and you glance in the rearview mirror to see a big black hovercar hurtling towards you.

You curse in Japanese. “Black Star!” you shout.

“On it!”

He leans out the back window and fires his arm-cannon several times. You periodically check the rearview mirror, and a strange combination of relief and elation and exhaustion of all things swirls in your mind as you see the smoking wreck of a hover plummet from the sky. Several black-cloaked figures jump at you from the ruin, but by this time you’re already too far away for them to have any hope of catching you.

You grit your teeth and drive faster, glancing around. A moment later, you see your ship, perched white and angled and beautiful on a floating island to your left, twin windows, so like eyes, boring into your own. You lean out the window, taking a deep breath, and as loud as you can, you scream its name:

“ _SPARTOI!!!_ ”

At the sound of your voice, it hums to life, the engine glowing blue. A ramp descends to the ground, and a moment later, you nearly bite your tongue off as the hover slams into the ground, skidding to a stop just shy of one of the _Spartoi’s_ legs. You don’t bother opening the driver’s side door and instead float through the window, helping Maka and Black Star with Soul up the ramp.

“Where’s the bridge?” Dylan pants.

“Down the stairs to your right,” you say. “I’ll be right there.”

You don’t pause to consider the interior, exactly as the bounty hunters left it (though now coated in a thin film of dust), instead directing Maka and Black Star to the medical bay. There, you help to lift Soul’s limp, blood-soaked form into one of the three beds. “ _Do whatever Maka tells you because she knows the most about medicine. Don’t you dare start a fight or I’ll skewer you in your sleep,_ ” you snap at Black Star in Japanese. He nods once, his eyes twin chips of sea glass, sharp and hard. With that, you exit the room, leaving him and Maka to their work, and fly as fast as you can towards the bridge. “One of you go back there and help those two,” you say when you arrive, your eyes darting between Dylan, Liz, and Patti.

After a moment, Patti steps forward. “Where’s it at?”

Liz puts an arm on her shoulder. “Patti, it’s okay, I’ll-“

“Down the back hallway to your left. Just follow the trail of blood,” you interrupt humorlessly, and Patti nods once and runs from her sister’s grip, hurtling up the stairs and out of sight.

“Let’s go,” Dylan says, eyeing the rising sun through the window as you take your position behind the control desk. Your fingers dart rapidly across it, and a few moments later, the great landing apparatuses creak and groan as they rotate into flight position.

“Hold on,” you say, just as the starship takes off, its engine rocketing it into the air. Your knees almost buckle under the pressure as the _Spartoi_ breaks free of Mawu’s gravity, and you cling to the control desk, body bent, as do Liz and Dylan. At last, you’re in space, the star-speckled blackness of the universe all you can see out the window, so vast and incomprehensible it threatens to swallow you whole.

“Where to?” you ask, straightening and shaking your head. Dylan whips out the screen, and seconds become small eternities as he voices the passcode and gets his retinas scanned.

“Eibon-7,” he says at last, handing it to you, and you punch in the coordinates.

“Ready?”

Liz sits down. From the ground, she and Dylan exchange a tight glance, and then they nod. “Let’s go kick those bitches’ asses,” Liz says, summoning up a wicked grin.

“Yes, let’s,” you say, smiling back. When you hit the button, a circular hole, swirling with dizzying color, blooms briefly against the fabric of space, only to be abruptly replaced with the city-planet Eibon-7, looming large and round in the window.

* * *

 

_(dylan)_

 “They’re not here.”

 Liz gets up from her position on the floor, grimacing and shaking her prosthetics. “What do you mean, ‘ _they’re not here?’_ ” she asks.

 “Exactly what I said,” you say evenly. “They’re not here. Their ship is large enough to contain the entirety of the army that my aunts have built up over the years. It’s truly _humongous,_ composed of people recruited from all over the Colonies. If it was anywhere near us, we would see it.”

“Maybe it hasn’t taken off yet,” Tsubaki says.

“Perhaps. Does this ship have a radio?”

“No, but Black Star does. I’ll be right back.”

Tsubaki lifts into the air and zooms out the bridge, leaving you and Liz alone.

“Why would we need a radio?” she asks, tilting her head.

“Because the Terrans are quite likely to notice if a large battle cruiser suddenly comes knocking at their exosphere.”

“Fair point,” Liz says, just as Tsubaki comes back with a slightly bloodstained Black Star in tow.

“So what’s up?” he asks, frowning. “This better be an emergency-”

“This whole situation is an emergency; ours is just more urgent right now,” says Liz dryly.

“We need you to tune in to Earth’s radio stations,” you interrupt before Black Star can retaliate.

He squints. “Why?”

“Because our target isn’t here and there is a chance that they’re already arrived at Earth, so every second you waste could be the second that an entire planet is flung into the sun.”

Black Star nods, and his arm rearranges itself into what looks like a receiver. “Tsubaki,” you say, and she nods, plugging in Earth’s coordinates.

“I hate wormholes,” Liz grumbles, sitting down again.

Eibon-7 disappears in a blink, to be replaced by Earth.

The planet is mainly ocean, a great glowing blue marble shot through with green and brown and white. You can’t help but be a little fascinated, despite your more pressing concerns. This planet is where the human race was born, the motherworld, ruling its colonies with an iron fist. You tilt your head. You’ve always wanted to visit. And then your gaze flicks to the left, and you stiffen.

Your aunts are here, all right. Even from this distance, the cruiser is visible, a great black dot silhouetted against Earth’s glow. Suddenly, there’s a great crackle of static from Black Star’s arm, and then a torrent of voices crackle forth, all speculating about the sudden appearance of the great hulking ship in their sky.

“On your mark,” says Tsubaki, hands poised.

You don’t reply. Black Star punches your shoulder. “What’re you waiting for?!”

“I don’t know,” you say. “ _Now_ , Tsubaki.”

The ship rockets forward. The cruiser looms ever-larger in your vision, its flanks glittering with rows and rows of lights. Your mouth falls open. You’ve never seen a ship as big as this in your life. It’s so large it’s almost incomprehensible, a great leviathan of the void, massive and hulking, filling up the window with its gargantuan presence. Compared to it, the _Spartoi_ is less than a gnat.

Liz swallows audibly. “ _Oh damn,”_ she whispers, mismatched eyes growing wide. “Can the q-drive handle that thing?”

“Of course,” says Black Star with a snort, but his eyes are glued to its massive bulk.

You press your lips together and then sigh. “Do it,” you say.

Tsubaki’s voice is noticeably quieter. “Yes.”

She fiddles with the controls, and a moment later, a wormhole blooms in front of the ship, its swirling colors barely visible. With bated breath, the three of you watch, hoping against hope. But to your horror, the cruiser plows right through it, and the wormhole breaks apart under the force of so much matter, leaving the battleship wholly unharmed.

“That went well,” says Liz, but it lacks any of her usual snark.

“Our driver’s nowhere _near_ powerful enough,” murmurs Tsubaki, sounding dazed. For a while, the four of you stand in stunned silence that’s quickly giving way to a hopeless sort of despair. You failed. Soul Evans, among of the last of his kind, might die, and for what?

_onetwothreefourfivesixseveneight_

The cruiser glides mockingly onward, as if it’s laughing at you.

_onetwothreefourfivesixseveneight_

“Shall we…turn around?” Tsubaki asks quietly.

 _“_ _Hell_ no,” says Black Star, shooting her a look.

“We can’t anyway,” you say. “There’s no going back. They’ll hunt me to the edges of the universe, and you and the others too, because you’re helping me.”

_onetwothreefourfivesixseveneight_

“How many bedrooms does this ship have?” you ask.

“Eight.”

“THAT’S IT!” Black Star shouts suddenly, eyes alight.

Your head turns towards him, whose grin in slightly manic with the force of his inspiration. “ _Our_ driver isn’t big enough,” Black Star crows. “But theirs is.”

Liz’s eyes widen. “You can hack it, right?”

For a few moments, you’re frozen as a feeling of wild, reckless, desperate hope explodes to life in your chest, crashing through your veins, making you grin too. “Of course!” you cry, and run to the terminal stationed at the left wall and begin to work, fingers flying across it furiously. Tsubaki laughs, her voice like a bell.

Suddenly, many minutes later, when you’ve almost broken through the security systems surround the q-drive’s computer, a hologram fizzles to life above the controls. You glance at it. It’s too fuzzy and distorted to figure out who it is and so you return to your work, but a moment later, your Aunt Madeline’s voice echoes through the control room.

“Well, well, well, look who decided to join the party,” she says, her tone rich and pleasant and decidedly deadly. “You’ve caused us _quite_ a bit of trouble this past month. So I’m afraid that means we’re going to have to punish you.”

Black Star grimaces. “You shut the hell up,” he says, brandishing a fist at the hologram. “If anyone’s getting their ass handed to them today it’s _you,_ blondie.”

“Oh? And who’s this?” Madeline raises an eyebrow but doesn’t look around. Your eyes widen. That means she can’t see you, which means that the Spartoi has some _damn good_ net security. You give the terminal a pat. You’re almost in, just a few more blocks. You jerk your chin at Tsubaki to bring you the screen with the coordinates.

Black Star puts his hands on his hips. “The name’s _Black Star,_ bitch.”

Madeline looks unimpressed. “How eloquent. Well, _Black Star,_ is my nephew available? I’d very much like to speak to him…”

“I’m here,” you say distractedly, still immersed in the terminal.

Madeline grins. “Excellent,” she says.

“We’ve got a surprisefor you!” chirps your Aunt Shaula as she materializes beside Madeline, multicolored braid draped over one shoulder.

“How nice of you,” you say, just as Black Star blows a raspberry.

“And we think you’ll _love_ it, Dill Pickle!” Her use of your father’s epithet makes your jaw clench, but a moment later, you have to suppress your cry of triumph, instead settling for giving everyone an emphatic thumbs up.

Aunt Shaula smirks at the wall directly to your left. “It’s a good thing you came back to us, because we have a surprise for ya! Hey, _Arianne,_ your son’s on the line!” You whip around, wide-eyed as their figures wink out, only to be replaced by

“Hello, Dylan,” says your mother softly.

It’s like you’ve been punched in the gut, or fallen a long way and hit the ground, or spent too much time on the terminal. No words come. It’s hard to breathe. You can only stare at her, dressed immaculately in a white lab coat, slacks, and a turtleneck, not a hair out of place, smiling her vague, distant smile.

“It’s a shame I can’t see you,” says Arianne Mortimer. “It’s been a while.”

“Y-yes, it has,” you stutter. On the other side of the control desk, Liz makes frantic motions in the direction of the terminal.

“You should let me see you,” Mother says. “I’ve missed you, dearest.”

“I’ve missed you too,” you murmur, the words slipping out before you can catch them.

Tsubaki taps your shoulder. You ignore her.

“How have you been?” your mother asks.

“Fine.”

“And Patricia? How come I don’t hear her sweet voice?”

“ _You stay away from my sister, you fucking zombie!”_ Liz shrieks suddenly, her eyes fierce.

Arianne looks around, puzzled. “Who’s that with you, dearest?”

“Nobody,” you tell her. “Mother,” and you hate the way your voice breaks. “What did they do to you?”

“They saved my life,” she says, and her smile deepens into something sickly sweet, rotting. “And they’ll save yours too. Come back, my darling. I want to give you a hug.”

Your hands are shaking, you realize, so hard that you can barely control them. “I…I have to go now,” you say, and it’s hard to get the words out. You shake your head at Black Star, who eyes you and then backs away from the terminal with a nod.

“Why? We only just got to talking! What’s the rush?” your mother says, and her eyes, glassy and empty behind the lenses of her glasses, tell you all you need to know. You take a deep breath and close your eyes. The corners of your trembling mouth turn down sharply.

_onetwothreefourfivesixseveneight_

“I love you, Mom,” you tell her, and you grit your teeth and hit _enter._

For a moment, nothing happens.

Then the wormhole appears for a brief instant, a great bright mouth yawning huge and hungry against the blackness of space, and the dread ship is swallowed whole. It reappears as a distant dot against the surface of Earth’s star, and for a heartbeat your mother’s bewildered eyes unknowingly meet yours before her image winks out and she and her sisters are consumed.

* * *

 

_(soul)_

_for a while, it’s dark, and that’s all right_

* * *

 

_(soul)_

The scent of evergreen tickles your nose. You open your eyes.

It’s sunset, and rays of red and gold light filter among the pine trees of the forest. You’re sitting at a table on the edge of a large clearing, the majority of which is taken up by dancers, their white hair stained with the colors of the dying sun and their currents thrumming with such excitement and joy that you can’t help but smile just a little in response. Decorations adorn the trunks around the perimeter. Strands of soft golden lights span the open space from tree to tree. Music plays somewhere to your left, lively and warm. In the lengthening shadows you can make out circular tables just outside the clearing, lit with flickering candles.

“Beautiful, isn’t it?” asks a familiar voice in your mother tongue. You turn, and almost fall out of your chair.

“Hey, little brother,” Wes says, smiling with his flat Terran teeth. “How’ve you been?”

You can only gape, too shocked for words.

“Close your mouth,” your brother chastises, tapping your cheek. “You’re going to start catching bugs.”

At that, you laugh weakly, lips curving into a smile. “Look who’s talking,” you say. “You’ve got the biggest mouth out of all of us.”

“I agree,” says a young woman passing by. There’s something vaguely familiar about her features. You squint at her, trying to pinpoint where you’ve seen her. She grins, flashing sharp teeth. “You recognize your granny yet?”

You blink, stunned. Your grandmother laughs, tugging at your ponytail. “My, my, you’ve let it get long. Kella won’t be happy about that, no sir.” Granny ruffles your hair. “Don’t move, I’m going to go get her. She’s been most anxious to meet you.”

“Wait, M-Mom’s here too?” you stutter, eyes widening.

“Of course, metalhead,” says Wes with a roll of his sapphire eyes. “This is a wedding, after all.”

Your eyes go wide, taking in your brother’s robes, white edged with a light blue, the garland of pine branches in his pale hair, the symbol for _marriage_ tattooed small and gold on the back of his right hand. He smiles. It’s bittersweet. “And you’re my best man.”

Wonderingly, you pat your garments. They’re a deep, rich red, the colors of your aforementioned station. The smile blooms hesitantly across your face, equal parts shock and exhilaration and happiness. “Con…congrats!” you tell your brother, clapping him on the shoulder. “Where’s the bride?”

Wes jerks his chin at a woman clad in gold, sapphire eyes softening. “Never in a million years would I have guessed,” he says. “Remember Liah? Three years older than me, lived in the village proper? She was always dropping by the shop on Waal Avenue because her poor father kept breaking his prosthetic.”

Suddenly, you remember her, a tall, thin, gawky girl who smiled a lot and whose hair was more of a pale blonde than white. You laugh. “ _That_ Liah?”

“The very one.”

You shake your head, grinning. “Way to go, you flighty bastard,” you say, shoving him gently on the shoulder. “You’re settling down. I’m proud of you.”

Wes gives you a long look. “You don’t smile enough, little brother,” he says. “You should do it more often, like you used to.”

But before you can reply, another voice chimes in. “Soul?”

You turn, and there’s your mother.

She looks just like she did in the holopics taken before she died: long white hair, sparkling red eyes, barely-there freckles scattered across her cheeks. When your eyes meet hers, she smiles. “I’ve waited so long to meet you,” she says softly, and opens her arms.

She’s so small, the top of her head only coming up to just below your shoulder, with slender bones like a bird. You stand and let your mother hug you, and it’s this action, the warm touch of one body to another as a gesture of _love_ , something you haven’t felt for three hundred years, that breaks you.

“My strong, brave boy,” Kella Evans murmurs in your ear. “You’ve been through so much.”

“You said it, Mom,” laughs Wes, and he joins in your embrace.

“You’re all saps,” Granny says, and the four of you stand huddled together for a long time, living breaths mingling in the chill air. No words are necessary because your currents, your living bodies, say everything that needs to be said. This form of silent communication only happens among the most intimate of friends, of family, where you delve so deeply into each other’s electricity that perhaps, for a time, you become one another, consciousness and emotions bleeding together and filling you up full, and with a shudder, you suddenly remember what it feels like to be warm.

 _am I dead?_ you wonder, and their currents go soft and say _almost but not quite._

_i want to die._

_not yet._

_i’ve wanted to for a long time._

_not yet._

Wes’s current warms, and he shows you feelings that he took from the depths of your own. _Maka,_ he whispers.

 _not yet,_ they say together.

_why not?!_

_she won’t let you._

_she’s selfish._ Anger rips through you, anger and other, more convoluted feelings that you don’t care to name right now. s _he should just let me die._

 _stupid metalhead._ Wes, exasperated. _she loves you._

You breathe in sharply.

 _not time,_ your mother says gently. _grow old. be happy._

 _you are alive and you can move forward,_ and Granny’s ferocity, her stubbornness, her iron will, displays itself briefly in all its shining glory before subsiding back into herself. _i want you to take advantage of that._

 _we’ll be here,_ murmurs your mother.

 _yeah,_ your brother agrees, and his current betrays him even as yours does you. as your mother and your grandmother fall away with kisses and smiles and last farewells you and your brother cling to each other, neither of you wanting to let go because _you’ve missed each other so goddamn much_

khione is gone. the two of you hang suspended among the stars. a hospital room on eibon-7 murmurs your name.

 _“make it good, little brother,”_ says wes, with both his current and his voice, and with one final squeeze he too dissolves into little distant points of light, bright like stars.

* * *

 

_(soul)_

It’s silent here, save for the faint hum of electric lights. You don’t open your eyes. For a long time, you think of nothing as you come back to yourself, back to the feel of blankets on your skin and a torso that aches like _hell,_ back to a dry mouth and stiff muscles and someone’s hand in yours.

Even in sleep, her current is taut, tense, guilty, grief-stricken. She worries secretly that you won’t wake up. She blames herself. She hasn’t left your side and doesn’t want to. She hopes and wishes and waits but that hope grows slimmer every day. Her doubts chase each other in her dreams.

_Stupid bookworm. It’s not good to worry so much._

She stirs. Her bones creak as she stretches. You hear her yawn, and suddenly all those feelings are amplified with her waking, slamming into you, along with new feelings: despair and anguish and

“ _S-Soul?”_ Her voice, incredulous, surprised, a flower of joy preparing to bloom in her mind only to wilt slightly because

“Why are you crying?”

But you can only shake your head as the sobs like breaking ice tear themselves from a dark place deep within you, as snot and tears bubble up and the dam breaks and you finally, finally let go and allow yourself to thaw.

* * *

 

_(beginnings)_

you all heal eventually, though it takes time and it isn’t easy. the moment you rediscover the thing that makes your life worth living again is the moment when you stand up and brush off the dried blood and ash of your past and take your first tentative steps towards the future, like an amputee learning to walk on new legs. _You are alive,_ you realize or remember or maybe both,and life goes on no matter what, as inexorable and full of possibilities as the universe itself. and so, you reason, with a soft smile and a deep breath, you might as well live it wholeheartedly.


End file.
